Good Enough Is Good Enough

There’s a book published in the 70’s entitled, “In Search Of Excellence” by Tom Peters. Needles to say, this book has help dominate organizational thought for the past 30 years. In pursuit of excellence, Tom says he will not hire a person with a 4.0 grade point average because he feels that a 4.0 is an indication that the person has not been playing enough. Hmm… that sort of discounted a lot of people from even starting.

Maybe you are one of those who buy into the idea of excellence. After all, being a Christian we are a child of the most excellent God. And to settle for any less is more like being a heretic. Well, for me I advocate good enough is good enough. I am not against being excellent, but I have come to the realization that having too much could just be as unsatisfactory as having too little. Someone once said … “Happy ends up being somewhere between not enough and too much.”

You may have heard it said, “If it can’t be done with excellence, don’t do it.” Well, Jesus never said that. The truth is almost everything we do is done poorly at first but that’s how we learn and progress. Way I see it, you don’t have to be perfect for God to use and bless you. Rick Warren said, “We would rather involve thousands of regular folks in the ministry than have a perfect church run by a few elites.” Jesus did not stress excellence.

In pursuit of excellence, many times there’s a huge cost to pay and that would involve a lot of hard work and self effort. And sometimes trying too hard can get in the way of God’s workings in our lives. God is not into extremism. It is in moments such as lack of faith, or weakness that we see God performing His miracles! God wants His kingdom to expand but in a balanced way. To hold on to excellence and excellence only, I think that could be extremism. My cheap and regular hammer is very effective in driving nails just as well as a very expensive, high tech hammer. Both get the job done equally well.

Good enough is good enough because it is good enough. Keep life simple. In this world of complexities, less is actually more.

Have a jolly good week!