I love my daughter. I know that's an obvious statement that most parents can and will make, (providing that they have a daughter), but I like making it anyway. Felix, (her name is Felicia but we call her Felix), and I have the quintessential daddy-daughter thing going and I couldn't love it more. She is amaz-za-zing. She looks like her mom but talks like her dad. Seriously, she is a sarcasm prodigy. One of our friends once said that watching her is like seeing Krissy act like me. A frightening thought in theory but somehow Felix makes it work and I fall more and more in love with her every day.
As part of being her daddy, I usually put Felix to bed at night. This consists of reading her a story, praying with her, and then dealing with about 15 minutes of her stalling with things like wanting "cold water" or another hug and kiss or her ceiling fan on or a tissue or a specific doll or a different CD in her radio. She has mastered drawing out her bedtime process sometimes causing me intense frustration. But generally, I get over it.
As I said, part of this process is that she and I pray together. We take turns with one of us praying one night and the other the next. When Felix prays, she will usually make sure to pray for each person in our family individually. Whether she does this out of genuine love or out of a desire to stall bedtime a little longer, I'm not sure. Probably a little of both. But as she was doing this last week she asked God, "Help Ian to grow big and strong. Help me to not get in trouble. Help mommy not have a headache," (something I pray for constantly as well), "And help daddy do good at church…" And with those words my five-year-old daughter gave me yet another lesson to consider.
For those of you who don't know, I work at a church. So Felix was simply intending to pray for me to do the best job I can while at work. But her choice of words is important. She said, "Help daddy do GOOD at church." Grammatically this sentence is not proper for the way she intended it. She meant, "Help daddy do WELL," but that's not what she said. Dictionary.com defines well as "commendably, meritoriously, or excellently." But it defines good as "morally excellent; virtuous; righteous." The difference isn't exactly subtle.
We all want to do well. We want to achieve new things and accomplish certain goals and complete certain tasks. We want to ensure that we will continue to have a job so we can pay our bills and support ourselves and/or our families. We want to be recognized as being proficient at what we do and have the respect from others that comes along with it. We all want to do well. Unfortunately, our culture has become obsessed with doing well even at the expense of doing good. Yes, we all want to do well. But not everybody cares about doing good.
Doing good is harder than doing well. It requires us to think outside of our own agendas and our own goals. It requires us to act in a selfless manner. Doing good requires that we actually care. Doing good requires that we act for the benefit of someone else and usually calls for some degree of personal sacrifice. Doing good is harder than doing well. Because doing good requires that we do well. But doing well doesn't require that we do good.
To do the most good I can I must also achieve personally. If I do well I will invariably have more opportunity to do good. More time, more resources, more insight and more experience are all byproducts of doing well. Therefore I will be able to turn around and use those things to do good. In short, the better I am at doing well, the more opportunity I'll have to do good.
But our culture has made it so easy to just achieve. I mean think about it; how do we measure someone's importance to society? If they have the bigger house, nicer car, better boat, greater education and fancier title they are considered more important. But how many people have all of those things but allow it to only benefit themselves? Compare that to the person who lives in a modest home, drives a Chevy Malibu, doesn't have a boat and has the title of auto mechanic but takes time each week to volunteer at a soup kitchen, or gives money to organizations that dig wells for people in Africa. Which one has directly made a more valuable impact on those around them? That's the difference really. We do well for ourselves but be do good for others.
In my life and in my job doing well is similar to other jobs. It means hitting goals and accomplishing certain tasks. It means learning and growing and maintaining. But even in a church, no especially in a church, just because I've done well doesn't mean I've done good. And sometimes it's easy to lose sight of which is more important. Well or good? Well or good? Well or good?
As part of being her daddy, I usually put Felix to bed at night. This consists of reading her a story, praying with her, and then dealing with about 15 minutes of her stalling with things like wanting "cold water" or another hug and kiss or her ceiling fan on or a tissue or a specific doll or a different CD in her radio. She has mastered drawing out her bedtime process sometimes causing me intense frustration. But generally, I get over it.
As I said, part of this process is that she and I pray together. We take turns with one of us praying one night and the other the next. When Felix prays, she will usually make sure to pray for each person in our family individually. Whether she does this out of genuine love or out of a desire to stall bedtime a little longer, I'm not sure. Probably a little of both. But as she was doing this last week she asked God, "Help Ian to grow big and strong. Help me to not get in trouble. Help mommy not have a headache," (something I pray for constantly as well), "And help daddy do good at church…" And with those words my five-year-old daughter gave me yet another lesson to consider.
For those of you who don't know, I work at a church. So Felix was simply intending to pray for me to do the best job I can while at work. But her choice of words is important. She said, "Help daddy do GOOD at church." Grammatically this sentence is not proper for the way she intended it. She meant, "Help daddy do WELL," but that's not what she said. Dictionary.com defines well as "commendably, meritoriously, or excellently." But it defines good as "morally excellent; virtuous; righteous." The difference isn't exactly subtle.
We all want to do well. We want to achieve new things and accomplish certain goals and complete certain tasks. We want to ensure that we will continue to have a job so we can pay our bills and support ourselves and/or our families. We want to be recognized as being proficient at what we do and have the respect from others that comes along with it. We all want to do well. Unfortunately, our culture has become obsessed with doing well even at the expense of doing good. Yes, we all want to do well. But not everybody cares about doing good.
Doing good is harder than doing well. It requires us to think outside of our own agendas and our own goals. It requires us to act in a selfless manner. Doing good requires that we actually care. Doing good requires that we act for the benefit of someone else and usually calls for some degree of personal sacrifice. Doing good is harder than doing well. Because doing good requires that we do well. But doing well doesn't require that we do good.
To do the most good I can I must also achieve personally. If I do well I will invariably have more opportunity to do good. More time, more resources, more insight and more experience are all byproducts of doing well. Therefore I will be able to turn around and use those things to do good. In short, the better I am at doing well, the more opportunity I'll have to do good.
But our culture has made it so easy to just achieve. I mean think about it; how do we measure someone's importance to society? If they have the bigger house, nicer car, better boat, greater education and fancier title they are considered more important. But how many people have all of those things but allow it to only benefit themselves? Compare that to the person who lives in a modest home, drives a Chevy Malibu, doesn't have a boat and has the title of auto mechanic but takes time each week to volunteer at a soup kitchen, or gives money to organizations that dig wells for people in Africa. Which one has directly made a more valuable impact on those around them? That's the difference really. We do well for ourselves but be do good for others.
In my life and in my job doing well is similar to other jobs. It means hitting goals and accomplishing certain tasks. It means learning and growing and maintaining. But even in a church, no especially in a church, just because I've done well doesn't mean I've done good. And sometimes it's easy to lose sight of which is more important. Well or good? Well or good? Well or good?
