Thursday Thoughts - Striving for Perfection

Below are thoughts I shared during our February Church Council meeting as a devotional.  Which every day seems to be reinforced in my head...

Nighttime Clouds 2/1/2022

 

Hebrews 6: 1-3 (NRSV): “Therefore let us go on toward perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and faith toward God, instruction about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And we will do this, if God permits.”

Last week in a course on the Psalms I am currently taking, we discussed seeing things from God’s perspective and how that really is a difficult thing to achieve because after all, God is God.

Perfection or striving towards perfection is another of those difficult things to achieve.  None of us will ever be perfect, no matter how hard we try.  Or how hard we do our best to make sure things we are doing are as close to perfect as they can be.  If anything, this past week has shown me that.  Though I strive for perfection in the things I do, last week I managed to not only mis-spell things that I should have known how to spell but write some grammatically terrible sentences on flyers I was making, forgot to take care of some things at home, and neglected to include groups from requested reports.

No, none of us is perfect.  But in striving or going on toward perfection, aren’t we supposed to try our best to do our best?  However, we also can’t get caught up in trying so hard to be perfect that it keeps us blind to the fact that God loves us, God accepts us for who we are, and that God knows we are trying our best to do our best, even if we make mistakes along the way.

Sometimes there are things forgotten or turned in late.  Sometimes there are typos in words written.  Or things are misspelled.  Or words are missing.  Sometimes we have a hard time finding the right words to explain what we mean, which may confuse people.  But what matters most is that we are doing our best for God.  Our best to show God’s Love to others.  Our best to expand beyond the four walls of the church building.  Our best to do the work of the church.