The false virtues

Character development is critical to the success of a child for a strong character is the best indicator of future success, it is far more important than intelligence or physical ability, although they do play a large role, for character allows you to live your life to its fullness.

If you Google ‘Character’ you will find many different definitions of character.  Depending on the source or the viewpoint of the author they can vary wildly but the common theme in them is that good character rests upon the practice of virtue.  As an educator this certainly squares with my experience. Those students who are virtuous invariably also have the strongest characters.

Character defines how you approach life, your world view, your mindset.  A person with strong character varies not from day to day but acts consistently.   A person of good character lives according to commonly held ideals. The speak honestly, act honorably, treat others respectfully, in other words they exemplify God’s attributes and they do it day after day.  If you have ever tried it you know, it is tough stuff.

Reading scripture it takes very little time at all to develop a laundry list of God’s attributes that we should copy.   God defines faithfulness, patience, long suffering, honor, and of course, love. No matter how long you make the list there are two commonly held ‘virtues’ that will never make it.

Fairness and niceness are not virtues and outside of certain select circumstance, are not worth very much. 

Fairness says treat everyone the same or else it isn't fair.  Alas, everyone differs from the other as do our needs and our resources.  Just about everything on the planet differs does it make sense to give them all the same?  Do those who live on the equator need homes with central heating? Or do inhabitants of Alaska or Northern Canada need air conditioning?   Outside of sports, fairness doesn't work.  What we want is not fairness but justice.  We want the poor taken care of, not because it is unfair that the rich have excess and the poor starve but because it is unjust that anyone be deprived of the ability to live honorably.  Another problem with fairness is that it is completely unachievable because as soon as you start to reach it, differences arise.  It is not fair that some people are healthy and others are not, that some people are better looking than others or smarter, or richer, or better at sports and there is no way to make it fair.  However we can all love better, treat each other with greater kindness, share from our excess. That we can do.

What about niceness? Don’t we all want to be nice? Who wants to say or do something that others won’t like? Isn't it best not to upset?   Take a look at the bible, God doesn't seem very nice does He? Jesus keeps convicting people of their sin, he calls sin a sin and calls upon the sinners to repent or face the wrath of God!  He even turns over the tables in the temple.  He says some very hard things.  All of Jesus actions demonstrate love, the selfless desire for the good of another. 

It is far better to be honest than nice.  For if I am nice all the time, how does anyone know I am telling the truth?  It may not be nice to tell someone they are an alcoholic, but it is essential if they are ever to be helped.  It isn't nice to have to tell someone they are dying of cancer, failed a test, or did not get the job  but it is just to let them know.  We should be tactful and kind   willing to say things that may not be welcome but that are necessary   

Let us pray our leaders can do such a thing.

Seeing Correctly


I wear corrective lenses and have since I was in 4th grade. I still remember sitting in the hallway outside the nurse’s office waiting for my annual eye exam and wondering why the trees did not have small branches like they did last year. A few weeks later I received my first pair of glasses and found myself amazed at how much detail there was in the world. Suddenly my whole viewpoint changed. I could see baseballs thrown in my direction far enough away that I could catch them, a big improvement when playing catch with my older brother, and from the pew I could see the priest’s hands and what he was holding.

The world seemed a different place to the 9 year old boy that I was, but it wasn’t. Glasses changed the way I saw everything, they did not change anything. Much like the way having faith changes the way we see the world, it does not change the world. This is of course, the very opposite of relativism.

When I look at the world from the vantage point of faith I see things in correct alignment. Nature follows rules which science discovers, there exists an order to the physical world where actions force definite conclusions, and all of it is in harmony with God’s revealed truth. So when I see grass grow, or a bird eat a worm I see order an ordered plan, a harmonious rhythm.

When you go to the eye doctor you are seated in a chair and asked to look at a chart across the room. The letters go from large to ridiculously small. The last line is the one you want to read, and sometimes it is hard to do so without some help. When storms blow and earths shake, when floods drown and droughts eviscerate, when disease runs rampant and famine starves the harmonious plan of God seems absent. Individuals may be tempted to make up a reason blaming the victims for their misfortune. To even a casual observer this is faulty, it also seems faulty to say God planned it.

When God made the world he clearly set it in motion to run along set lines and evidently He is reluctant to interfere with what he put so much care into setting up. Why? If creation ran so poorly that it required Divine intervention to function, what would that say about the creator?

History tells us that nature generally follows its own course and while we may think of these events as random they most certainly are not. Storms and droughts form due to the interaction of sun and ocean; earthquakes occur due to the movement of tectonic plates, while a tornado destroying a town fills the heart with sorrow, the storm itself was created because of certain atmospheric conditions which are good for us. It is good that hot air rises and cools creating clouds; it is good that winds move the atmosphere around and it is good that it rains. The forces of nature which cause the spring rains to come, the summer sun to warm and the fertile soil to produce abundance we enjoy also cause all the disasters.

Sometimes disasters strike, sometimes the natural event occur where we live and homes are destroyed, businesses ruined and lives lost. Those storms would have been exactly the same if they had occurred a few miles away from houses and homes, the difference is what they hit not whether they hit anything. They occur irrespective of mankind’s presence or plans.

Whereas nature acts according to a neutral preset rules, we don’t. We have free will. We can decide to help the stricken, to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, to bind the wound. God works in this world largely through us and His love can best be seen in the actions of His children.