I am so excited to be reviewing the book
From Good to Grace: Letting Go of the Goodness Gospel by Christine Hoover! My review of the book is coming soon. In the meantime, enjoy this guest post by Christine. You will love her heart for Truth, her transparency, and boldness in speaking the Truth in love. Book review spoiler alert: you are going to LOVE this book that is rooted deep in the gospel of Christ and the grace of God!
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Good,
Bye
Christine
Hoover (@christinehoover)
is an author, a recovering perfectionist, the wife of a pastor, and a
mom of three boys. She writes online at www.GraceCoversMe.com
and has contributed to Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition,
Christianity Today, Send Network, and iBelieve. Her newest book, From
Good to Grace: Letting Go of the Goodness Gospel,
offers women biblical freedom from trying to “be good enough”.
The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of the book. You
can read the entire chapter here.
I’ve
been obsessed with being good and performing all of my life.
Hello,
my name is Christine. I’m a goodness addict.
I
was born with a list in my hand, or at least that’s how early I
imagine it started. I came by it honestly—my mom’s response to
everything my sister and I needed as children, whether shampoo from
the store or help with a school project, was always, “Make a list!”
So
I did. I made list after list—of library books for summer reading,
of boys that I liked, of songs to record from the radio on my tape
recorder, of necessities to pack for overnight camp, of must-haves in
my future husband, even of outfits for the first month of eighth
grade so as not to repeat and make a fashion faux pas of infinite
proportion.
I
don’t just make lists. I am that
person, the one who adds a task to a list just to experience the
satisfaction of crossing it off, the one who makes lists for my
lists.
I’m
a perfectionist.
There
was a time when I would have said that with pride, but not anymore.
Perfectionism has not been a friend to me. Sure, my house is
organized and my budget spreadsheet is up-to-date, but when
perfectionism is applied to the spiritual needs of the heart, it’s
called legalism. And legalism
is a fancy word for an obsession with goodness. It’s a belief that
good things come from God to those who are good. And it’s a belief
that you can actually be good enough to get to God on your own.
I
became a Christian at age eight. From that point, or more accurately
from the point in middle school when I started having “quiet times”
according to my youth minister’s instructions, until my late
twenties, I spent the majority of my Christian life striving—striving
for perfection, for God’s favor, for the approval of others, and
for the joy and freedom that the Bible spoke of yet completely eluded
me.
At
an early age, I fell for perfectionism’s lie that I could be good
enough to win God’s heart and the approval of others. I sought joy,
peace, and love through being good and, instead, found myself
miserably enslaved to my own unattainable standards.
This
was my understanding of what it meant to be a Christian: If I do good
things, then God is pleased. If I do things wrong, then he is angry.
This is actually the basis of every religion on earth except
Christianity,
this idea of a scale where the good must outweigh the bad in order to
be right with God. I had religion down pat, but the religion I
practiced wasn’t true and biblical Christianity. On the outside I
appeared to be a good Christian, but on the inside I felt unlovable
and was riddled with guilt about my inability to please God.
Unfortunately
for me, a large part of a goodness obsession is an addiction to self.
Goodness is evaluated by activity, completed tasks, responses from
others, and results. It requires a focus on appearance and image and
maintaining some semblance of religious behavior. Goodness required
that I control my environment with military precision, hide my
weaknesses, and compare myself with others or my own arbitrary
standards. Goodness fed both my pride and my self-condemnation and
kept me relationally isolated.
The
other part of a goodness addiction, I discovered in my twenties, is a
faulty understanding of who God is and what he expects from His
children. I only saw God through perfectionism’s filter. He was
gray. He had no patience for my mistakes, forever glaring at me with
a scowl on His face. He sighed a lot. If I was extra-good, He might
manage to crack a smile. He was one-dimensional, disengaged,
unaffectionate, and I absolutely feared him.
I
knew nothing about grace.
I
knew nothing about forgiveness.
I
knew nothing about the true gospel, because a goodness addiction
completely overtakes the heart and mind, leaving no room for truth.
It enslaves and cannibalizes itself. It becomes an all-encompassing
religion, closing tightly around one’s soul. It led me down paths
of depression and despair.
And
it became my gospel.
I
lived according to that gospel–what I now call the goodness
gospel–for far too long, precisely because I didn’t know the true
gospel’s reach. I believed that faith was effective for salvation
but only self-effort could produce my sanctification. Now I know
differently. God has taken me on a ten-year exploration of grace and
sanctification and faith, and I am not the girl I once was. I live in
the freedom that Christ was won for me.
Now
that I know differently, I also have eyes to see the goodness gospel
covertly worming its way into hearts of believers, and I see its
destructive effects.
In
the Christian culture, there seems to be great confusion and even
pressure that we women feel about what we should be doing and why we
should be doing it. The confusion touches decisions about education,
family, eating and drinking, work, hobbies, community involvement,
and even whether one should volunteer when the sign-up sheet is
passed around again at church.
The
pressure grows when choices are wrapped in spiritual or
more-spiritual terms. We see it everywhere: Do something great!
Follow your dreams! Make a difference for the kingdom! Be missional
and in community! For the gospel-confused, that too often translates
into: I’m not doing enough, what I’m doing isn’t making a
difference, and I’ve got to create my own and my neighbor’s own
and my children’s own and everyone’s own life transformation.
From
Good to Grace: Letting Go of the Goodness Gospel
is a book for women like I was, who long to please God but fear they
never will. It's for the woman drowning in self-condemnation, the
woman afraid to be vulnerable with others because she's so fully
aware of her imperfections, and the woman who craves but can't seem
to grasp the freedom and joy that Jesus promised His followers.
Instead
of asking "What does God want from
us?", From
Good to Grace asks,
"What does God want for
us?"
The book illustrates how we confuse being good and trying hard--the
goodness gospel--with the true gospel, which is really about
receiving
the
grace and love that Jesus offers us and responding
with
our lives by the Holy Spirit's help. It’s my prayer that through it
you discover it's possible to know God's love, live in peace and
freedom, and serve others with great joy. Because
God has something so much greater for you than trying to be good
enough.
