Is close enough really good enough? After all, almost only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and skunks. Hi, I’m Tom Ellsworth from Sherwood Oaks Christian Church with a minute message.
Whatever happened to the virtue of giving one hundred percent? Is striving for almost truly a noble goal? Most who believe close enough is good enough would find a 99.9% effort more than commendable, but that would hardly be acceptable in many areas of life. For instance, at 99.9% accuracy, the Postal Service would mishandle more than 18,000 pieces of mail each hour or nearly ½ million pieces per day. At 99.9% accuracy, hospitals would give twelve babies to the wrong parents every day, the IRS would lose 2 million documents yearly, and 2.5 million books would be shipped out annually with the wrong covers. At almost one hundred percent, 20,000 drug prescriptions will be incorrectly filled in the next twelve months. We know we aren’t perfect, but we ought to put forth our best effort.
Here’s the best news – when God loves or forgives it is never less than one hundred percent. So remember, while others may settle for 99.9%, there’s no almost with God.