Choices

Call me Tired (apologies to H.M.–Yours was better, but you’re dead, so you’re not even reading this).  End of a long day.  Today I made choices–just like yesterday and tomorrow.  But today I decided something about the choices. Choices are not so much a matter of good or bad: at least, not the important ones or the hard ones. We generally know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong.  Those choices may impact our life, but they seldom determine who we are. The real determining choices,the hard choices, are the choices between good and best.

I read a book a while back, or it may have been an article (I read too much) called something along the lines of “Good to Great.” The premise was settling for good is what keeps us from being great. While I understood and generally agreed with the premise, it didn’t really sink in until today.

Being in ministry, I tend to relate things to ministry.  Believing that most ministry is influenced by our understanding of our own mission, my thinking generally follows that road.  My epiphany moment today came when I realized that I have often sacrificed great by settling for good–in my ministry and in my understanding of my own mission. My choices weren’t bad. They were good. But they weren’t best.

In all my years of ministry, I believe there are very few instances where people can accuse me of doing something bad (well, some might, but they are, how did one of my Baptist friends say it?, stupid).  But I do plead guilty to doing good instead of doing best. It has defined much of my ministry.

But I think it is true of all of us. The choices between good and best are much more influential than the choices between good and bad.

Now,  I think it is best that I shut up.