“Santa’s watching: you’d better be good.”
I hate that sentence. Using the idea that the reason to be good is because you will be rewarded for your behavior destroys the purity of goodness. To motivate children be polite or kind or generous or selfless in this way sort of sullies those good things. It’s hard to teach that goodness is its own reward because we are oftentimes a selfish people.
We do this with Christmas, and we do this with faith. Do we only pray so God will answer us according to our desires? Do we only give so He will return to us ten-fold? Do we only believe because of the promise of some fluffy sweet-by-and-by? Do we only attempt meekness because we want to inherit the earth? Do we only drop His name because He promised to drop ours? Do we only love so we will be loved in return?
Are we capable of continuing to love God even when He breaks us? Rich Mullins was so right: it’s hard to be like Jesus.
This *might possibly be* my favorite Calvin & Hobbes strip. Calvin makes the horrible and convicting discovery that we are only truly good when we are good for nothing:
From “The Essential Calvin and Hobbes” by Bill Watterson