Are You A Perfect 10?

Are you a Perfect 10? Are you the best? I most definitely am not. Not in appearance. Not in talent. Not in my walk with God. Nowhere. Do you know someone who is? I sure don't. Yet, everywhere we turn in society we are pressured to be exactly that. Be the perfect actor or actress. Be the best mom, dad, running back, diver, writer, singer or speaker. Guys rank girls features on a scale of 1 to 10 and I'm convinced that some girls do the same to guys. We are all pressured to believe that if we aren't THE best at whatever we do then we will not meet our full potential of success. What is this struggle that pushes and also pulls us toward a mark that no one has reached in the last 2000 years? Here's my opinion on a spiritual level:

I am convinced that even though we can not be perfect, God requires us to strive for perfection.

Your immediate thoughts are probably something like this: "What? God doesn't expect me to be perfect. That's why He offers forgiveness and grace and mercy." You are exactly right. I know that God doesn't expect me to be perfect but I know that God wants me to strive to be exactly that. II Samuel chapter 10 tells a story of King David. I won't quote the entire story but I highly recommend reading it. Here it is or here's an excerpt.

9 Joab saw that there were battle lines in front of him and behind him; so he selected some of the best troops in Israel and deployed them against the Arameans. 10 He put the rest of the men under the command of Abishai his brother and deployed them against the Ammonites.

The awesome part in verse 9 is that we see that Joab selected "the best troops in Israel and deployed them against the Arameans." The reason this is so relative to my blog is because when we back up to verse 6 we read:

6 When the Ammonites realized that they had become a stench in David's nostrils, they hired twenty thousand Aramean foot soldiers from Beth Rehob and Zobah, as well as the king of Maacah with a thousand men, and also twelve thousand men from Tob.

Put 2 and 2 together yet? We understand that the Aramean army was, by far, the largest and strongest army in the battle.

So Joab chose the best troops to fight the hardest battle. Joab divided his army into two parts and, through the telling of this story, gave them two distinctive names: THE BEST TROOPS and.....the rest.

I don't know what this story speaks into your life today but here is what I hear from it. Regardless of what I give God, whether I give him 20% or 100%, I STILL HAVE TO FIGHT. I would much rather be known as a choice soldier, one of the best troops, than to be complacent, give God less than He deserves, and be considered one of "the rest".

I WILL strive to be a Perfect 10.

Want Some Candy?

"Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance—" Proverbs 1:5

My wife, Brooke, and I have been married since March of 2002 and we have since been overwhelmingly blessed with 4 beautiful and healthy children. Our oldest child and only daughter, Kate, will turn 8 in March and even later than that if I had any sort of say so. She is a beautiful and brilliantly curious child whose relentless questions about life and everything in it requires me, at times, to ask her for a break from serving as her encyclopedia. She's a special girl. She, fortunately, has more of her mom's personality (where it counts) than mine even though Brooke somehow can immediately identify the things Kate does that are "her daddy" and the things Kate does that are "her mama". It's a highly predictable pattern.

At the ripe old age of 3 1/2 Kate made a completely understood and conscious decision to ask Jesus to come into her heart. She blows my mind at times with the way she grasps the reality of that decision. She has never looked back and has held amazingly fast to the decision she made that night. She constantly uses words like "maybe" and "might" in situations because she fears stating an untruth. She is literally the most respectful and caring child I have ever met and, without knowing, she is always, and I mean always teaching Daddy. I just want to share a "for example" with you here.

On Friday afternoon, we picked up our oldest two from school and drove 2 1/2 hours to Macon for my niece's birthday party. We had a wonderful time eating bratwurst and doritos and watching the kids swim and play. My sister made decorated cups of candy for all the kids and gave them out as everyone was leaving a few hours later. As we were loading up the car and I was make my goodbye rounds, my wife and daughter had a seemingly normal conversation that my wife shared with me on the way home after all the kids had fallen asleep. Here's the conversation, word for word.

"Mommy? You know how the bible says that if you do something for somebody that God will do something for you or something like that?"
"Yes baby. Why?"
"Because you know how I really like Now-and-Laters but Nana (my mom) does too?"
"Yes."
"Well there weren't enough cups for any adults so I gave Nana all of my Now-and-Laters. But then Rylie (my other niece) came to me and she doesn't like Tootsie Rolls so she gave me all of hers and Tootsie Rolls are my favorite. I didn't even know she didn't like them."
"Maybe God is trying to show you His faithfulness."
"I know. That's pretty cool isn't it?"

God? Please, please, please keep me teachable.