Best, Good, easy

This is what the Lord says, your redeemer, the Holy one of Israel: "I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go." Isaiah 48:17

I interviewed for a job last week, and found out this week that they hired someone else. I was pretty disappointed yesterday. See, God's destination and mine are sometimes quite divergent. I tend to be going to what's easy. Far from being interested in even what's good for me, I want easy. I want to find the most efficient way to do things, and to live my life in the path of least resistance. At least, that's my first instinct.

My first instinct frequently gives way to my trying to do what's good. Good and easy are seldom the same, but I want to be a good man. I know that being a good man changes nothing about my relationship with God, it doesn't earn me God's love, it doesn't buy me God's favor. It doesn't in any way make me worthy of the grace God so freely pours out on my life. But, since I'm going to be some kind of man, I'd prefer to be a good one. I don't think that goodness is a state of mind, I think that it's the result of a lifetime of choices. Choices not to do the easy thing, but instead to follow the more noble course, to do, or be good. Now, in this case, I found myself yesterday saying to God, "Lord, I know that your plan must not have included this job, but c'mon, I want a job, a job is a good thing, and there was this job which looked like it might be fun."

God isn't after what's good. God is after what's best. God has entirely skipped over better. For definition purposes:

good= morally excellent, virtuous

better=the preferable between several options

best=the most desirable of all options

God's standard, the destination he's taking my life, isn't toward simply good. God doesn't describe himself as working toward my good, he says that he is teaching me what is "best" for me. What is most desirable among all possible options. Now, even in being disappointed yesterday, that's somewhere I want to go.

I'll keep posting about my job search here, understand that if I sound whiny, it's because I want what's easy, and sometimes, when I'm having a really good day, I manage to make it to wanting what's good. God is working on the best standard, and sometimes, because I'm sinful and broken, I find that hard to live with.