We don't find our goodness. we are reminded of it.

​In the creation story, one day at a time God creates bits and pieces of nature: the sky, the planets, the oceans, the birds and trees and grasses and sands. All of it. And at the end of each day, God looks back on that day's creation and calls it 'good.'

On the final day of his project - he creates humans. And as he looks down on the whole scene - humans and nature together - admiring his work like an artist who's just painted the very scene she imagined, he doesn't say this is good.

He says this is 'very good.'

As the Christian story goes on from there, we encounter a couple - Adam and Eve - who make a mistake. It's the first mistake recorded in human history.

For the very first time, good people do something that isn't good.

It's there that the struggle begins. The struggle to answer the question - am I good or bad. The struggle to answer the question - are you good or bad.

To be clear, that is OUR struggle. Not God's. God never took back what he said about us. In fact, as a reminder of the goodness he still sees in us, he sent his son to die on a cross.

No, it is you and it is I who say, "I am not VERY good." It's you and I who look at one another and judge, "they are not very good."

We sometimes interpret the story of Adam and Eve as a story of a human race that inherited evil. Actually, what we inheritied was their capacity to make mistakes. We inherited their inclination to believe the people God created weren't good enough as created, which led them to seek a greater goodness.

I know sometimes people wonder, why would a God who created such goodness allow for people to go on such a search?

I don't know, but I have a theory. It's a theory based on my own life.

I have been prone to make mistakes my entire life. Most of them because I've struggled to see myself as goodness, so I've been on a lifelong search to find my goodness. Along the way, the search has often left me feeling worse than ever. It's left me feeling down and exhausted and ultimately scrambling back to one single place for respite and comfort - every time.

That place is in the quiet reminder that goodness isn't OUT there, it's IN here.

Goodness is in the quiet reminder that I made you good, you can not undo that, and you can not find a replacement for it. The promise IS your sole source of goodness.

It's only then, it's only when we adopt that promise as our sole source of goodness that we can truly begin to grasp the goodness in others. It's only when we come to know that our goodness is not defined by our mistakes or the lack of them - but by the One who made us - that we can come to see others not by their mistakes, but by the One who made them.

Yes, Adam and Eve committed the orginal sin, they made the first mistake.

But God created the original goodness. The day he looked down at me and you smack dab in the middle of his nature scene - and he said this is 'very good' - God defined goodness.

He never took it back. In fact, he sent his Son to say I still believe. I still believe you are very good.

Sometimes WE don't believe that. But the answer isn't a search. The answer is to sit quietly and hear the reminder.

Our mistakes aren't intended to derail us, they are intended to send us back to the reminder.