Doing the Right Thing Anyway: A Christian Perspective

There is a particular species of humiliation that seems designed to test the very foundations of Christian virtue. It is the bitter draught of being taken advantage of by someone you have helped, the peculiar sting of watching your generosity be rewarded with exploitation. It is the experience of extending kindness and having that kindness converted, as if by some dark alchemy, into ammunition to be used against you. And it is in precisely these moments, when every fiber of our being screams for justice, for recompense, for the satisfaction of being proven right, that we are called to do something that appears, by all worldly measures, utterly insane: to keep doing the right thing anyway.

The Universal Experience of Being Used

Let us not pretend that this is some rare occurrence, some exceptional trial visited only upon the saints. No, this is the common currency of human interaction, the daily bread of anyone foolish enough to try to live with any shred of decency. The colleague who credits your ideas as his own. The friend who borrows money and treats repayment as an amusing suggestion rather than an obligation. The family member who interprets every act of love as evidence that they can ask for more, and more, and more still, until your generosity becomes their entitlement.

I have felt it myself, that particular species of rage that comes from being treated as a resource rather than a person, from watching someone mistake your kindness for weakness, your patience for foolishness. There is something uniquely galling about it, something that touches a nerve deeper than mere offense. It feels like a violation of an unspoken contract, a betrayal of the way things ought to work. We help people because we believe, however naively, that goodness should beget goodness, that the moral universe should bend, even slightly, toward reciprocity.

But what if it doesn't? What if the person you help takes your help and then spits in your face? What if they not only fail to be grateful but actively resent you for putting them in your debt? What if your good deed becomes, in their telling, yet another example of your insufferable superiority, your tiresome meddling?

The World's Perfectly Reasonable Advice

The world, of course, has a solution for this predicament, and it is a perfectly sensible one: stop being a fool. Protect yourself. Build walls. Develop what the modern therapeutic gospel calls "healthy boundaries," which often translates to "become a bit more like everyone else, a bit more calculating, a bit more guarded, a bit more careful about who deserves your investment." Learn to distinguish between those who will appreciate your help and those who will exploit it. Become, in short, wise as the world counts wisdom.

And I must confess, there is something terrifically appealing about this advice. It promises relief from the exhausting work of being good to people who don't deserve it. It offers the satisfaction of fairness, of measured reciprocity, of treating people exactly as well as they treat you. It whispers that you have earned the right to protect yourself, that you have been kind enough, that surely no one could fault you for finally, finally drawing a line.

Moreover, this worldly wisdom comes with impeccable logic on its side. Resources are finite, it reminds us. Time and energy are limited. If you squander your goodness on those who will waste it, you'll have nothing left for those who might actually benefit from it. It's not cruelty; it's stewardship. It's not selfishness; it's wisdom. It's not abandoning virtue; it's simply being more strategic about where you deploy it.

The argument is so reasonable that it's almost impossible to refute on its own terms. And yet.

The Upside-Down Kingdom Strikes Again

And yet Christianity, that most inconvenient of faiths, refuses to play by these perfectly reasonable rules. It insists, with an obstinacy that would be admirable if it weren't so maddening, on a completely different calculus. It points us to a Christ who knew, knew with absolute certainty. That one of His chosen disciples would betray Him, and fed him anyway. Who washed the feet of the man who would sell Him for thirty pieces of silver. Who looked at Peter, who would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed, and made him the rock upon which the church would be built.

Christ knew He was being taken advantage of. He knew the cosmic injustice of the cross, knew that the crowds who shouted "Hosanna" would soon be screaming for Barabbas. He knew His healing would often go unthanked, His teaching would be twisted, His sacrifice would be misunderstood. And He did it all anyway, not because He was unaware of the unfairness, but because fairness was never the point.

This is the scandal at the heart of the gospel: that God's love is profligate, reckless, utterly unconcerned with whether the recipient deserves it. It is the kind of love that causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, that sends rain on the just and the unjust. It is a love so impractical, so inefficient, so contrary to every principle of wise investment, that it makes economists weep and accountants despair.

The Terrible Freedom of Giving Without Return

But here is where it gets truly strange, truly counter-intuitive: there is a peculiar freedom that comes from doing right even when, especially when we know we're being used. When we give up the expectation of reciprocity, when we release our death grip on fairness, when we stop keeping that meticulous ledger of who owes what to whom, something shifts. The act of kindness becomes, paradoxically, more our own. It is no longer a transaction but a choice, no longer an investment expecting return but a gift given freely.

I am not suggesting we become doormats, blindly enabling destructive behavior. Wisdom has its place; we are called to be wise as serpents, after all, even as we remain innocent as doves. There is a difference between being exploited and being strategic about how we help, between being used and recognizing when our help actually harms rather than heals. But that's a different question from the one we're addressing here.

The question is not whether we should be wise in how we love, but whether we should stop loving when wisdom suggests it's wasted. And to that question, Christianity gives an answer that sounds like madness: love anyway. Give anyway. Serve anyway. Not because it will change them, it might not. Not because you'll be rewarded, you might not be. Not because fairness demands it, it doesn't. But because this is what it means to bear the image of a God who loved us while we were yet sinners, who gave Himself for us when we had nothing to offer in return.

The Practice of Foolish Goodness

So what does this look like in practice? How do we live this out when our neighbor asks to borrow our car for the fifth time and we know, we know! He won't return it with a full tank? When our sister-in-law asks for help with her resume again, despite never following through on the last round of edits we spent hours on? When the colleague who has taken credit for our work twice before asks for our input on their latest project?

I think it begins with a brutal honesty about our own motives. We must ask ourselves: why do we help? If we're honest, most of our good deeds are not purely altruistic. We help because we want to be liked, because we want to feel useful, because we hope for reciprocity, because we're building social capital. We loan the money expecting gratitude, give the advice expecting it to be taken, extend the kindness expecting recognition. And when these expectations are violated, we feel cheated not because love was abused but because our investment failed to yield the return we anticipated.

But what if we could help without those expectations? What if we could give our time, our resources, our energy, knowing full well that they might be wasted, misused, unappreciated and do it anyway, not because we're masochists or fools, but because we're participating in the divine economy where waste is sacred, where the prodigal son gets a feast, where the workers who showed up at the eleventh hour get the same wage as those who bore the burden of the day?

This doesn't mean we never feel anger or frustration. Christ Himself overturned tables in the temple. It doesn't mean we never set boundaries or protect ourselves from genuine harm. It does mean that our goodness ceases to be conditional on the worthiness of the recipient. It means we stop playing God, stop deciding who deserves our love and who doesn't, and simply love because we have been loved far beyond what we deserved.

The Transformation of the Giver

Here is the secret that the world misses entirely: when we do right despite being wronged, we are not primarily changing the other person. We are being changed ourselves. Every time we choose kindness over bitterness, generosity over calculation, grace over grudge, we are being slowly, painfully transformed into the image of the One who gave everything for those who gave Him nothing.

The person who takes advantage of us may never change. They may continue to exploit, to manipulate, to treat our goodness as their due. But that is their journey, their struggle, their account to settle with God. Our calling is simpler and somehow more difficult: to keep choosing love, to keep doing right, to keep reflecting the character of a God who is absurdly, recklessly, foolishly generous with His love.

I will not pretend this is easy. There are days when the unfairness of it all feels overwhelming, when the temptation to harden our hearts feels less like temptation and more like common sense. There are relationships where the pattern of exploitation is so entrenched that continuing to engage feels less like love and more like enabling. These are real tensions, and they require wisdom, prayer, and sometimes the counsel of others who can see what we cannot.

The Long View of Love

But in the end, we must remember that we are playing a long game, living according to a different scorecard than the world uses. The world measures success by protection of self, by reciprocity, by fairness. The kingdom of God measures success by the degree to which we reflect the nature of a God who loved His enemies, who died for the ungodly, who continues to extend grace to those who spit on it.

And perhaps, just perhaps, there is something redemptive in being the person who keeps loving anyway, who keeps doing right anyway, who refuses to let someone else's behavior determine the content of our character. Perhaps in being taken advantage of and responding with grace, we are bearing witness to a different kind of economy, a different kind of power, a different kind of victory.

For in the end, the person who takes advantage of our kindness has only succeeded in revealing their own poverty, while we have been given the high and terrible privilege of loving as God loves, freely, recklessly, without calculation or return. They may win the transaction, but we are being slowly, mysteriously conformed to the image of the One who was the ultimate doormat, the ultimate fool, the ultimate victim of cosmic injustice and who, in that very foolishness, redeemed the world.

So yes, do the right thing anyway. Love anyway. Give anyway. Serve anyway. Not because it makes sense, but because it makes you holy. Not because they deserve it, but because you are becoming the kind of person who gives without counting the cost. Not because justice demands it, but because grace exceeds all demands.

And in that foolishness, you may just find the truest wisdom of all.

- The Seeker's Quill

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