On Being Nice

Most of us have smiled at and some of us have echoed the prayer of the little girl: "O Lord, make all the bad people good, and all the good people nice." It is a pleasant bit of whimsy that makes me think about two important things.

The purpose of the Creator-God is to make bad people good. Only God can ultimately do this. Not only does God want to make bad people good; He wants to make good people nice. In either case, it takes the cooperation of the one needing the goodness or the niceness. Bad people do not become good until they see that they are bad and need help and repent of their badness. Good people do not become nice until they see the winsomeness and beauty of the Christ who went about doing good.

Face it. There are some good people who are absolutely not very nice at all. Their disposition has more in common with the pickle jar than with the honeycomb. They are pure but prickly, clean but critical, straight but strident, good but not good for anything in particular.

Some of these good people have dour dispositions by nature; some have soured under adversities and problems; some have climbed to the judgment seat and play the role of the Creator; some have drifted into the habit of contentiousness and talk more about what they are against than what they are for.

Let it be known that followers of "the Way" suffer far less from opposition and scorn of those without than they do from the influence of those who profess everything from the lids of the sacred Book, who find themselves yet quarrelsome, cynical, unkind, and very much devoid of the sweet loveliness of the One who taught us all to "love one another."

Whatever else we want to believe about it, people size us up far less on the basis of what we say or how we look than they do by what they feel exuding from our spirit.

To be nice does not mean to be prim and prissy; neither does it mean to be affable and permissive. However, it does mean to be motivated by true thoughtfulness and caring concern. This cannot be faked. It does mean to be possible to live with, rather than to live without. It does mean everything that is summed up in the word and the deed that makes the world go 'round - "love."

Come to think of it - it is really a needed prayer: O Lord, make all the bad people good, and all the good people nice."