Lin, a single mom lived with her young daughter, Suzie. One day, when she was playing in the attic, Suzie broke a priceless Ming vase that had been in her mother's family for countless generations. Rather than face her mother with the truth, Suzie came up with a plan to avoid her mother's wrath. She decided that if she were exceptionally good, her mother would reason that a child so good either could not be capable of such a horrendous act of destruction or certainly would not deserve punishment.

 Suzie's grades in school improved dramatically, she began to do extra chores around the house, and was unusually polite and considerate when her grandparents visited. Lin soon became suspicious of her daughter's angelic behavior. It didn't take her long to discover the shattered heirloom.

Instead of punishing Suzie, Lin decided to play along with her. She called her daughter's teacher and asked her to give Suzie extra credit assignments and suggested that the young lady do volunteer work in the neighborhood. Suzie eagerly accepted her new assignments.

After a couple months, Suzie could take no more. She burst into tears and confessed her misdeed. Surprisingly, Lin took her daughter into her arms and held her tightly, then looked Suzie in the eyes and said, "Doing what is good is not always doing what is right. Don't you know that you are what is priceless to me? You are worth more than thousands of vases and I could never replace you. If you would have confessed, I would not been happy that you were playing in the attic, when I told you not to. It was a costly mistake and I might have given you some small punishment, but I would have still loved you no less. Now, I am not going to punish you, because you have done such a good job, yourself. I hope that you have learned your lesson and now know why it is so important to obey me when I ask you to do something or not to do something."

This story illustrates how we can be running from God by doing what we believe to be good. Isaiah 64:6 (KJV) says, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."

There may be some aspect in one's life that that person is not willing to give over to God. By doing enough good works, that one believes that God will ultimately overlook that one area of disobedience. That individual will always feel that nothing he or she, as that passage of Isaiah says, will be good enough to please God, but will still keep trying to do more, in the hope that God will be satisfied. I've got news. Although God delights in the good deeds that we do, there is something that He desires even more from us, obedience. All the good that we can do will not substitute for being obedient to God, by entrusting every aspect of our lives to Him, for everything that we are or that we possess, ultimately belongs to Him.

Article Source: http://www.thearticleblogs.com/authors/3949/James-Walters