There is no one good… not even one

..FYI, this isn’t a photo post. More of just a personal insight into my own life.

There is no one good… not even one
This phrase really hit me the other day and I just felt the need to write about it. If you’ve ever read the bible you may have come across this phrase before… maybe even glossed over it.. I did, as a matter of fact, I glossed over it again and again.. that is till last week when I was confronted with the truth of it.

I think if you asked most people about me they’d probably tell you I was the sweetest guy, one of those do anything for you kinda guys …yes, even give you the shirt off my back, ..that I never say anything mean about anyone and am just the greatest guy… I’m some ways that’s kinda true, but in others not so much… my wife will tell you that without hesitation, but she’s right as usual… but this isn’t about her. It’s actually about some totally messed up joking I did with someone the other day and who I ended up offending, maybe even greatly.  I didn’t even realize it till that evening after I was home.

I just never thought much about how joking around could get you into trouble. See, I have a ton of different friends.. I have white ones, black ones, Asian ones, I have black (Bi-racial) daughers… and the truth is, put us all together and it gets nuts.. In hindsight maybe a little too much.. one of the things we seem to do a lot is bust on each other. We poke fun at what we ware, how we act & talk, where we live and on and on.. thinking about it, an outsider might even call it kinda rude and crude.. But never once has anyone taken offense to each other or any comments.. it is just one way we communicate.

Looks like I took it a little too far the other day as I did the same thing with a co-worker of mine… I thought nothing of it… to me it was just joking around… well, that wasn’t the way it was interpreted.. there was an offense caused and I had no idea… till later… I still feel really bad about it (even a week later). Not that I can do anything about it… whats done is done, I apologized and only can hope it’s not one of those things that lingers forever..

As I have been feeling really terrible about it and dwelling on it… you know those thoughts that swirl around in your mind.. “I’m the worst person in the universe”, “I stink at this whole Christian thing”, “Some man of truth I am” … shall I continue?….anyway,  reading the bible the other night I read that phrase again… There is no one good, not even one (it’s in Romans)… and this time I didn’t gloss over it, it hit me deep ..and it became a relief for me.. from all those thoughts… now this doesn’t make what I said any less wrong, but it did give me some real insight to my real self … it means God knows I’m not good, no matter what anyone says of me, no matter what I do… and if I am not good, then it’s reasonable to think I’ll make mistakes..even big ones … which makes me so much more grateful for the cross of repentance, because that is what covers our mistakes …

So anyway.. I will be much more careful about how I use my language in the future. I hope to even be more cognizant of the language I use to joke and bust on my friends, tame it down a notch… even though they have never, on the surface, been offended, maybe I need to be thinking a little more about what is happening under the surface.

So maybe this was exactly what God was trying to teach me (that no one is good) a lesson I hope to never forget and will cause me to stay vigilant when it comes to my speech.