Is “good enough” good enough?
Perhaps a more basic question is “What is good enough?” Is 90% good enough? 95%? 99? How about 99.9%?
Of course the answer really depends on what we’re applying the description to. For me, I would have been very pleased with 90% in my college organic chemistry class. (Actually, I would have been pleased with 70%, since as it turned out, I didn’t even make that.)
With some things we can accept much less than perfect as “good enough”. Sometimes that’s not the case. Take your car, for example. It most likely has 4 tires, though I have seen some in England with 3. Assuming your car has 4 tires, is 3 inflated ones and 1 flat one “good enough”? No. Obviously anything less than perfection here isn’t acceptable.
How about ourselves? When it comes to things that impact our life each day, is 90% acceptable? Take a look at a few examples of 99.9% perfection:
- The IRS only loses 2 million documents each year.
- Only 12 babies are given to the wrong parents by hospitals every day.
- Only 291 pacemaker operations go wrong.
- There are only 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions delivered daily.
- Manufacturers only ship 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes.
Each of these things represents only 0.1% error rate, yet each is unacceptable if you’re the one it impacts. What is acceptable to God when the subject is sin? Is a 0.1% error rate acceptable? Which one of us can claim 99.9% perfection on our own?
No, zero percent error rate and 100% perfection is the only thing acceptable to God, which is why “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8. Because we are “clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:27), God can look at us and see Jesus, rather than see our sin and filth. With that realization we can only respond as Paul did: Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:25.
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Posted on June 6th, 2008 by Bob Mathews
Filed under: Grace, Growth, Humility, Salvation
