Excellence

Excellence is the state or quality of excelling. I never have liked definitions of words that include a form of the word itself in the definition. That's just a side thought though. This morning I read another article on excellence, pursuing excellence, seeking excellence, striving for excellence, accepting only excellence, and settling for nothing short of excellence. The author suggest, if we cannot do something with excellence we should not do it, or even attempt to do whatever it is.

I thought about that for a very long time today and have decided that excellence can be very limiting. Most of the things I do are not excellent by my standards and certainly not by my critics standards. Much of what I do though is pretty good, and more often than not, good is excellent. I'm discovering the excellence concept is stifling. When I think about all the wonderful, crazy, insane good ideas that turned out far better than ever imagined, I realize that excellence is over rated.

So I am not a fan of excellence. Excellence becomes an unrealistic standard setting people up to fail. That's why I'm a fan of good.

My son has been has been saying this unknown to me quote lately, "If the sky is the limit, there would never be footsteps on the moon." Those footsteps are a collection of really good ideas, and not one of those ideas alone was excellent. I think excellence is over rated, I think excellence is an illusion that wastes time and energy or worse, stops good from growing.

Do something good today, if it turns out to be excellent well, that's excellent!

Forgiveness

I heard a great definition of forgiveness this week. To forgive means, we will never bring up the topic again with the person we are forgiving and we will never bring it up to anyone else again, ever.

Yes, we'll still remember the transgression and yes at times the pain of the memory will hit us with a force beyond our endurance and at times it will seem like it just happened yesterday. When we forgive though, we let go and the only way to do that is to never mention it again. The pain stays, we no longer name it, we rob it of it's power with our silence, and yet we remember.

God doesn't remember, Is 43:25 "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.

That's the difference between us and perfection, we remember, He blots out. Our sins are as if they have never occurred, never to be brought up again, never to be remembered.

In His perfection we are made perfect.