Pretty Good isn't Perfect

I am supposed to be writing a paper right now... a big, special, important paper and I am running out of time to do it. So, why am I blogging? Well, there are only so many significant forms of procrastination that I can think of. Why not blog about my paper instead of writing my paper? Sounds like a good idea to me... it's better than writing that paper, trust me.

I've been writing my big Torrey paper lately and spending loads of time on it. I finally finished it (well, finished putting it together) the other night... a full week before it is due! Actually, it was due early for peer review, but that's a different story. The point is, I have spent so much time on that paper that it now feels precious to me. I don't want to put it through a whole week of revisions from 7+ people. It's good as it is; don't put pain to a masterpiece, you know? But I've been reminded again and again that if I really want this to be a "precious masterpiece" I will need to allow it to go through all that suffering. I am a little scared to work so hard on this thing; I just don't want to do it. But I think it's necessary.

With all this thinking about suffering over my paper, I started thinking about God and how He is in the process of making me His "precious masterpiece" for real. He created me and finished putting me together a while ago, but now come the revisions... I wonder if He ever feels like He just doesn't want to put me through that pain, like He doesn't want to see me hurt, but He knows it is necessary for me to become that masterpiece. I wonder if, like our papers, He feels that He could revise forever and I would still not turn out perfect in the end. I wonder if He just has countless things in my life to comment on and adjust - things that I didn't even know or think needed adjustment.

I'm telling you, my paper has been brutally beaten up, and it isn't even half way through its torture. The comments against it just keep coming and coming. I hadn't ever thought of it before, but I'm slowly realizing that my life is much more complicated than a paper, even a Torrey paper, and that it will clearly have more things to adjust than the mere paper.

I'm also realizing that pretty-good is not perfect. God will never be satisfied with mostly good; He is looking for perfection in His people. Like my paper, I am finding that there will never be a time when there will be no kinks or things to fix in my life. I will always need revision and there will forever be something I can/should improve on. It isn't enough just to be good. Good isn't perfect.

Perhaps the hardest bump to get over is not from bad to good, but from good to perfect. When something is good, we think it doesn't need anymore changing... it has come so far, how could it possibly go farther? Does it even need to go farther? Is it really that important to change? And I feel like I don't have the motivation or the power to change what needs to be changed in my paper... that's something I cannot, or at least don't want to, do. Like myself, I know I have areas of my life that need some patching-up, but haven't I worked on them long enough? I cannot change anymore; I don't want to change anymore. Haven't I come far enough already? I don't have the power to continue working or to produce the changes that need to take place.

I can't, but God can.

With His help I can do all things, as trite as it sounds. I can let go of my pride and control and I can strengthen a paper that I just don't care about anymore! Jesus loves me. Jesus cares. Jesus is perfect. He is the perfection that I need. I need Jesus to shine through my life so God sees His perfection in me as He continues to work on this precious masterpiece.