Righteous

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How righteous are you? I don’t ask this in a judgmental way, but in reflective way. In the Gospel today (Matthew 1:18-24), Joseph is called a righteous man, and that he wouldn’t expose Mary to shame.

via GIPHY

In our age of being so connected to so many people through social media, that would definitely mean not posting, tweeting, or snapping anything about it—but I think it would mean even more than that. It would mean to not share that information with anyone that didn’t truly need to know. How often do we fail to do something like this, and for much less life-altering events? Think about it—what Joseph was intending to do was no small matter. He was going to marry this girl, but then finds out that she’s pregnant! And he knows he didn’t have sex with her. What would most of us do? We’d be a wreck! We’d be miserable and depressed, and angry. We’d be vengeful and want to share what she did with the world, so as to ruin her life just like she ruined ours.

And yet Joseph doesn’t do this. Not because he was weak, but because he was strong. Because he was a righteous man. I think we underestimate Joseph a lot of times. We look at him as someone who is quiet (not a single word he says is recorded in Scripture), loyal, and somewhat of a pushover. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Joseph was a courageous man, obedient to God alone. He didn’t sway to other people’s opinions. He didn’t worry about his reputation (well, maybe he did—but he didn’t let that influence his decision). He was such a trustworthy man, that God entrusted His Son to him. We are all influenced greatly by the people who raise us, so to think that Joseph had little to do with who Jesus became is ridiculous.

How much like Joseph we should want to become! Instead of putting others down—regardless of what they may have done to us—we should bring others up. Most of the time we put others down so that we may make ourselves look better. Is that really such a good reason? And I know some of you reading this who know me know that I put others down, and often. Although it’s always as a joke and I never mean it maliciously, it is something that I am working on (as are most things). I’m also trying to be more purposeful in bringing people up (which is something I rarely used to do). I look to Joseph as an example, so that one day, I might be considered a righteous man.