Perfection By Romney Ruder

Perfection.

It is interesting how this word has been used over time. Commentators use the word to describe Kevin Durant’s basketball jump shot. Jewelers use the term to help drive up the price of precious gems. Even weather forecasters refer to the looming storm systems with this word.

It seems that, in our world, we are constantly striving to achieve perfection.

As Christians, we know and believe that perfection has only been in the life and work of Jesus Christ. While we strive daily to be more like Him, we recognize that we can never be Him due to our humanness. Yet, sometimes, we let the notion of perfection keep us from achieving all that we were called to be. In our efforts to try and reach perfection, we are less likely to take risks, afraid that we might blemish our perfect score, evaluation, or review.

Because of our fears of failure, we may steer away from the road less traveled and keep driving along the familiar road. Yet this is not biblical.

In the parable of the Talents, the servant who buries his money for fear of risk is punished. To see a better example of “failing forward,” one can look at how Christ led his disciples. Time after time, they said the wrong thing, acted the wrong way, or misunderstood what was happening around them. This was not by chance. Jesus was using each of these situations to coach and train His disciples.

My favorite saying is, “If you always do what you have always done, then you always get what you have always got.”  It is a longer way of saying, “Stupidity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting a different result.”

For some reason, society has engrained in us that failure should be avoided. While failure is nothing we should strive for, failure is something we can learn from.

This year, as you ponder your personal goals, why not set a couple that will put you in the place for potential failure? This year, all of us will fall off the bike at one time or another. Instead of taking a worldly view and looking at how far we are from perfection, let us use this information to drive us forward and learn.

How might you “fail forward”? How might you use your failed experiences as lessons you can learn? Christ utilized failure as a training tool for his disciples. We should take confidence that He would expect the same from us.

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Romney Ruder, Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and urban missionary with World Impact, is passionate about Christ and for people to know Him. In his roles, Romney seeks to see churches planted and urban leaders developed throughout our nation every day.