Not Good Enough

Do you ever feel like good is never good enough?  Like no matter how hard you try, how perfect you pretend to be you will always come up short.  The problem with perfection is that you are doomed to fail. I don’t know if I hold myself up to a standard of perfection or if others assume that because we pastor a church we are perfect.  

Our heart is truly to let people in on the little secret, we aren’t perfect, far from it in fact.  We are just people trying to figure this thing out.  Trying to do our best at a 15 year marriage, trying to do our best at parenting four kids and trying to do our best at leading a church.  Everyday we realize more and more, it is a crapshoot.  We haven’t done any of these things before.  So we do our best.  Sometimes our best is good enough and other times not so much.  

Here is what I know.  If I had it all figured out, if I was perfect, there would be no need for a saviour.  There would be no need to depend daily on Jesus.  I would be able to handle everything on my own, but the truth is none of us can handle life on our own.  When we try, we fail.  Jesus never expected us to be perfect, in fact, it is in our imperfections that He works the best.  So, when I am overwhelmed and when I am weak that is when He can come in and take over.  There is one requirement that He asks of me, that I give it over to Him, that I stop trying to take control and let HIm have whatever I can’t handle on my own.

It takes the acknowledgement that I don’t have it all figured out, I am not perfect, I need Jesus.  Everyday I need help, I need the Holy Spirit at work on the inside of me daily.  I love what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “

My grace is all you need, My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me.”  That is why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions and troubles that I suffer for Christ.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Boasting in weakness because Jesus gets the win. That’s what it is really all about anyways.  The past couple months have been hard.  They have been hard in a way that digs at my very being. Most of the time I feel we are pretty good at relationships.  Maybe the truth is I thought we were a little too good at relationships, so good we didn’t really need God.  That is a dangerous place to live.  When some of the relationships in our lives started to have issues we felt like it was a blow to our very identity and who we were called to be.  This is the time to hand it over, repent for trying to control, for thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought too and let God deal with these issues.  

I am not saying God made people get mad at us or say ugly things about us, but maybe, just maybe, he stepped back to let us see how good we aren’t without Him.  Maybe since we thought we could do it on our own, He let us for a minute.  It is a quick turn back to Jesus when things are falling down around you, God is gracious when we turn control back over to Him.  

I have realized these past few months I am nothing without the power of the Holy Spirit, my best will never be good enough.  It is only with the help of Jesus that I can live this life the way that I am called too.  To lead, to parent, to live with grace and forgiveness, that requires some help.  I don’t want my best life, I want God’s best life.  Good living isn’t enough for these days, we need supernatural, Spirit filled living to love this world, to forgive those who betray us and to lead a generation of people down the narrow path.  

So what does this mean today?  My good will never be good enough.  I need Jesus every single day.  In a place where we strive to live ‘the good life”, we must realize our good is never good enough without Jesus.  When we can combine our good with a good God the sky’s the limit.  His power works BEST in our weakness.  So let yourself off the hook today and stop trying to be perfect.  It is not our job to be perfect, but simply to release control and realize our dependence on Him.