‘How was your trip?’
‘Good. It was really good.’
What an overused word, right? We use it to describe our food, our favorite songs, our car rides, our appearances, our days.
But God used it for us.
When God created us, all of creation was eternally changed. We were the big part of the plan. We weren’t first, you know. The waters, the land, the plants, the stars, the creatures of the earth and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. All affected when man was made in His image. All of it changed by the presence of humans. Humans immediately interacting with and revolutionizing everything that previously existed.
Adam and Eve came. He blessed them, gave them dominion, and then He called it very good.
They sinned. We know the story- Satan was there and Eve ate the apple. Adam, too. They broke the perfection that the world had been operating in. They disrupted order, disrupted the pattern and laws of nature that had been existing for whatever the God of the universe calls five “days.” God wasn’t surprised about this. Clearly, he knew it was coming. The big part of the plan. And still, he called them very good.
I think in Western culture today, we wouldn’t call something like that good. We’d call it an uproar, a tragedy. Someone messing it up for everyone. ‘Damn it, Eve,’ the headlines would say, or something worse. We blame the president for the national debt. Why not blame Eve for all of human suffering? She was the first one, after all.
I think my World Race was good. In the world’s sense, sure. I made good friends and ate good food (sometimes). I did good work that helped good people and I had good days and I took pretty pictures and I bought souvenirs. I smiled a lot.
But more than that- overwhelmingly and completely- I think my World Race was good in the Lord’s sense of the word. In the way that it screwed everything up. Nothing followed the order. Lots of time passed by, wasted, and lots of plans went wrong. My emotions, which I would’ve actually deemed stable prior to the race, got absolutely rocked every 5 minutes. I was repeatedly broken to pieces and absolutely angry and the ones who caused it, but it was never actually about them. About their humanity. It was always about sin.
Sin- the same thing that caused all this disorder in the first place. God doesn’t call sin good. No one would. Maybe Satan would.
But still, God calls us good. He calls me good. While the world might’ve called Eve a screw-up, God sees Eve. And He sees sin. He offers her forgiveness and patience and grace. He loves her relentlessly. He hates her sin.
I think that’s where we miss out. We have trouble separating people from their sin. The Bible makes this clear distinction between the person made in the image of God and the sinful nature inside of them. It’s cliché to say, “Just see people how Jesus does,” but that’s what so much of this year has been for me. How different would it be if we all saw the person- the beautiful, earnest, made-in-the-image-of-God person. And then we saw their sin. Inside of them, sure. Maybe they’re bound by their sin. Maybe they’re worshipping their sin. Maybe they’re minimizing it. Maybe they’re fighting it, fighting the good fight to resist it, to find freedom. I think we all fall into one of those categories. And still, God calls us good.
God’s given me a good year. A year of incredible experiences, places I’ll never see again, depths of friendship and relationship and community I’d only imagined before. He changed the order and the false perfection I had been operating under. He mixed it up and broke it down. He called it good. He called me good, and I started to believe it. Not because I see good in me, but because I see good in all of His people who are wrecked by their sin. The same ones that the world deems hopeless because of their sin. Pitied because of their sin, or because of someone else’s. Freed from their sin. Like me.
God sees it- He sees it all. Some would say he even allows it.
And God. Calls. Us. Good.
So when I say my year was good, it’s not a cop-out. It’s not because I couldn’t think of a more descriptive word, or because I don’t have a crazy story or a specific month to tell you about. I have plenty. It’s because God looked at me, and He called me good. 21 years old and wide-eyed at what the world could look like, confused about what I could like in the world. He looked at me and He sent me a whole year- something unexpected, wild, better than anything I could’ve asked for, experiential and difficult, genuine and true.
And he called it good.
photo & tattoo cred goes to the one and only Christi Chatman
