The integrity of the upright will guide them,
But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.
Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,
But righteousness delivers from death.
The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way aright,
But the wicked will fall by his own wickedness.
The righteousness of the upright will deliver them,
But the unfaithful will be caught by their lust.
Proverbs 11:3-6 (NKJV).
There's a phrase that's been cited, in the context of relationships, where "you're either growing apart or growing together", though the specific phrasing varies from one citation to another, and also exists in various contexts as well.
That said, the basic idea is that there is no "middle ground". There is no "neutral", no "cruise control", that you're either actively investing in a relationship or you're letting it stagnate and die out. We dance around this idea with other idioms like "familiarity breeds contempt".
We hate being forced to choose. We hate when we find ourselves in a circumstance where a choice must be made and we don't like any of the options we're offered. We want to think there's a "third way" that is somehow being hidden, that if somehow we twist words and try to come at the issue a different way that we'll find another option, another path to take which better suits what we want.
When it comes to righteousness, however, there's only two paths, despite moderns efforts to try and claim otherwise.
"Sin", you see, is not an objective existence, it's subjective, in that like the concept of "cold", it exists in a relationship to another concept. Temperature is a measure of heat, and one temperature may be described as "cold" compared to another, "cold" itself is just a relative term.
Likewise, "sin" is relative to God's perfect character attributes. The greater you lack alignment, the more sinful you are, and while all have fallen short, some do fall further than others and that is reflected in the consequences they face here in this life.
To deny God's attributes as "good" undermines "sin", and so modern philosophies have sought to undermine the definition of God, or to change it such that they can sit on the throne. The problem is that this attempt at regicide only leads to more sin. There is no righteousness to be found at the end of a path which included denying God's desires for our own behavior.
We can't "get there" by any other path, and since God is the standard, the one perfect example, everything else is simply a variation of failure. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to miss the mark, to still not be perfect, and so we cannot on our own overcome sin completely.
Righteousness is not of us alone, it's in our response to God and in how we reflect God's characteristics in our behavior. It's not us blazing a new path, it's us taking the one God has pleaded with us to take from the beginning.
In seeking God's desire for us in our choices, we will constantly be doubting our own inclinations, and learn about how we each fail on a consistent basis. This self-doubt is necessary to combat the sense of solipsism, the belief that we're all that exists and everything else is just the products of our own imagination.
We see this dynamic play out all the time where people will suggest that reality is not as is objectively seen, but that it is open to revision, subjective, and that their thoughts or their mind is the source of both the current states and any future states. In short, that they are viewing the objective reality, and that everyone else needs to recognize this truth.
It's never about really denying the existence of God, but changing who God is, or who gets to wear the name badge. It's never about destroying the throne, but changing who should sit on it.
It's always about trying to change the standard for comparison, never abolishing the need for a standard in the first place.
And it's in this that, because the standards we would set are always much lower than what God really is, we find ourselves consumed with wickedness because of our foolishness. We even double-down after the first wave of consequences may arrive, hoping that perhaps the consequences were just a fluke, a rarity that would not manifest again. Until it does.
This is why God, in respecting the choices that humans make, will gladly break you if it would lead to your salvation. To take away your health, your wealth, your family, whatever it is that distracts you from the most critical truth: you are not God.
This passage highlights that we can either set God as our standard, pursue righteousness, and find satisfaction on into eternity as all that is sinful is destroyed or judged, or we can be caught up in that judgment and experience eternal punishment for our infinitely ungrateful foolishness.
We are either set free from the consequences of sin by obeying God, or we are condemned by how we deny and rebel.
There is no third choice.
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