Yesterday our Jewish friends celebrated Rosh Hoshana – the beginning of their new year. A woman on my LinkedIn network recommended an article that I find worthy of passing on to you. (Here’s a link to her profile. If you are a member of LinkedIn, you may want to view it.) Thanks, Deborah!
I read the blog title – Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Goodness – and I was a both intrigued by it and a bit thoughtful about it.
Intrigued: The phrase we most often hear – the phrase from our Declaration of Independence – is “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Why was this author changing the wording? I was also intrigued because the blog was recommended in a business forum and it appears smack dab in the middle of a business blog that is generally about innovation. I had to check out. I’m glad I did. While the author isn’t writing from a Christian perspective, his discussion about the differences between pursuing happiness and pursuing goodness. It’s a very good (and short) blog.
Thoughtful: I frequently use the phrase “pursuing God” or “the pursuit of God,” so the slight difference and the author’s conclusions got me thinking. There is certainly a big difference between pursuing goodness and pursuing God, but they are not mutually exclusive. When we pursue God, we must include the pursuit of goodness. The inverse relationship isn’t necessarily true. We can pursue goodness without pursuing God. I was a pretty good person when I was an atheist! I followed many of God’s commandments simply because they made sense for a prosperous life. Of course I didn’t know I was following God’s commandments. I just knew them as good principles to live by. Yet those of us who claim the name “Christian” cannot ignore the pursuit of goodness. Several things have come together that have caused me to begin to develop a new series for this blog. The series title will be “Let’s Be PC!” No I’m not encouraging those of you who use Macs to migrate to PCs, and I’m not suggesting that we become politically correct. I’m suggesting that we become Practicing Christians! More on that in a week or two. In the meantime, pursuing goodness is a great place to start. We so frequently say “God is good. All the time.” If we are to reflect God to the world, that goodness must be reflected in all we do.
L’shana tova all. And let’s pursue goodness! Blessings!
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