Perfect

              As for God, his way is perfect: The Lord’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him. (Psalm 18:30)

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Perfect? How many people lost their lives in the flooding in Texas? Some might say, “If His way is perfect, why is my life such a mess?” or “If His way is perfect, why is there evil in the world? Certainly, this isn’t perfect.” But these questions are the ones asked in the maze, or in the forest where our view of the whole is blocked by trees.

I saw something on social media recently about the dark matter and dark energy in the universe. This morning, I found statistics saying that we can only see about 15% of the universe, even when we use machines. When I stargazed, I stood in awe of the vast number of stars I could see, but I have never seen the nearest stars (The Alpha Centauri trinary), and what I could see was only a tiny percentage of the stars in our galaxy alone. And yet, there are people who say that the only things that exist (or the only things that exist and that matter) are the things they can see, measure, and control. And there are many more (ourselves included) that tend to think that we see enough and know enough to be able to judge whether or not things are perfect. And ultimately, things are only “perfect” if they are as we want them to be, which means things are only perfect if we are God.

In Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (which I need to read again), there is a story of a ride on a subway. There were children acting out and running around, while their father sat as if drunk. What a lousy father! At some point, the father shared that they were on their way home after his wife’s funeral. That knowledge put a whole different spin on the situation. It’s what Covey calls a paradigm shift. While we may think things are a mess, if we had more information, we might not think they’re a mess at all but are amazingly orchestrated. But because we have only our own, limited, subjective perspective, and they are not the way we think would be perfect, we stand in judgment.

If we are going to seek His face, as I mentioned yesterday, we must begin with the understanding that our understanding isn’t as good as it could or should be. We don’t have all the facts. We must be willing to approach God before God makes sense or gains our approval. We must be willing to acknowledge our own imperfection.