One of my favorite thoughts was near the end of the book when she compares putting off the goodness gospel as stripping old wallpaper. It can be a hard and slow process, but the reward of a true gospel-fueled abundant life in Christ is worth it!!
Christine Hoover (@christinehoover)
is an author, a recovering perfectionist, the wife of a pastor, and a mom of
three boys. She writes online at www.GraceCoversMe.com and has contributed
to Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, Send Network, and
iBelieve. Her newest book, From Good to
Grace: Letting Go of the Goodness Gospel, offers women biblical freedom
from trying to “be good enough”. The following is an excerpt from the first
chapter of the book. You can read the entire chapter here.
I’ve been obsessed
with being good and performing all of my life.
Hello,
my name is Christine. I’m a goodness addict.
I was born with a
list in my hand, or at least that’s how early I imagine it started. I came by
it honestly—my mom’s response to everything my sister and I needed as children,
whether shampoo from the store or help with a school project, was always, “Make
a list!”
So I did. I made list
after list—of library books for summer reading, of boys that I liked, of songs
to record from the radio on my tape recorder, of necessities to pack for overnight
camp, of must-haves in my future husband, even of outfits for the first month
of eighth grade so as not to repeat and make a fashion faux pas of infinite
proportion.
I don’t just make
lists. I am that person, the one who
adds a task to a list just to experience the satisfaction of crossing it off,
the one who makes lists for my lists.
I’m a perfectionist.
There was a time when
I would have said that with pride, but not anymore. Perfectionism has not been
a friend to me. Sure, my house is organized and my budget spreadsheet is
up-to-date, but when perfectionism is applied to the spiritual needs of the
heart, it’s called legalism. And legalism
is a fancy word for an obsession with goodness. It’s a belief that good things
come from God to those who are good. And it’s a belief that you can actually be
good enough to get to God on your own.
I became a Christian
at age eight. From that point, or more accurately from the point in middle school
when I started having “quiet times” according to my youth minister’s
instructions, until my late twenties, I spent the majority of my Christian life
striving—striving for perfection, for God’s favor, for the approval of others,
and for the joy and freedom that the Bible spoke of yet completely eluded me.
At an early age, I
fell for perfectionism’s lie that I could be good enough to win God’s heart and
the approval of others. I sought joy, peace, and love through being good and,
instead, found myself miserably enslaved to my own unattainable standards.
This was my
understanding of what it meant to be a Christian: If I do good things, then God
is pleased. If I do things wrong, then he is angry. This is actually the basis
of every religion on earth except Christianity,
this idea of a scale where the good must outweigh the bad in order to be right
with God. I had religion down pat, but the religion I practiced wasn’t true and
biblical Christianity. On the outside I appeared to be a good Christian, but on
the inside I felt unlovable and was riddled with guilt about my inability to
please God.
Unfortunately for me,
a large part of a goodness obsession is an addiction to self. Goodness is
evaluated by activity, completed tasks, responses from others, and results. It
requires a focus on appearance and image and maintaining some semblance of
religious behavior. Goodness required that I control my environment with
military precision, hide my weaknesses, and compare myself with others or my
own arbitrary standards. Goodness fed both my pride and my self-condemnation
and kept me relationally isolated.
The other part of a
goodness addiction, I discovered in my twenties, is a faulty understanding of
who God is and what he expects from His children. I only saw God through
perfectionism’s filter. He was gray. He had no patience for my mistakes,
forever glaring at me with a scowl on His face. He sighed a lot. If I was
extra-good, He might manage to crack
a smile. He was one-dimensional, disengaged, unaffectionate, and I absolutely
feared him.
I knew nothing about
grace.
I knew nothing about
forgiveness.
I knew nothing about
the true gospel, because a goodness addiction completely overtakes the heart
and mind, leaving no room for truth. It enslaves and cannibalizes itself. It
becomes an all-encompassing religion, closing tightly around one’s soul. It led
me down paths of depression and despair.
And it became my
gospel.
I lived according to
that gospel–what I now call the goodness gospel–for far too long, precisely
because I didn’t know the true
gospel’s reach. I believed that faith was effective for salvation but only
self-effort could produce my sanctification. Now I know differently. God has
taken me on a ten-year exploration of grace and sanctification and faith, and I
am not the girl I once was. I live in the freedom that Christ was won for me.
Now that I know
differently, I also have eyes to see the goodness gospel covertly worming its
way into hearts of believers, and I see its destructive effects.
In the Christian
culture, there seems to be great confusion and even pressure that we women feel
about what we should be doing and why we should be doing it. The confusion
touches decisions about education, family, eating and drinking, work, hobbies,
community involvement, and even whether one should volunteer when the sign-up
sheet is passed around again at church.
The pressure grows
when choices are wrapped in spiritual or more-spiritual terms. We see it
everywhere: Do something great! Follow your dreams! Make a difference for the
kingdom! Be missional and in community! For the gospel-confused, that too often
translates into: I’m not doing enough, what I’m doing isn’t making a
difference, and I’ve got to create my own and my neighbor’s own and my
children’s own and everyone’s own life transformation.
From
Good to Grace: Letting Go of the Goodness Gospel
is a book for women like I was, who long to please God but fear they never
will. It's for the woman drowning in self-condemnation, the woman afraid to be
vulnerable with others because she's so fully aware of her imperfections, and
the woman who craves but can't seem to grasp the freedom and joy that Jesus
promised His followers.
Instead of asking
"What does God want from
us?", From
Good to Grace asks, "What does God want for us?" The book illustrates how we confuse being good and
trying hard--the goodness gospel--with the true gospel, which is really about receiving the grace and love that Jesus
offers us and responding with our
lives by the Holy Spirit's help. It’s my prayer that through it you discover
it's possible to know God's love, live in peace and freedom, and serve others
with great joy. Because God has something
so much greater for you than trying to be good enough.
Purchase your copy
today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christianbook.com, or iTunes and discover the gospel’s reach in
your own life.
