Almost Good Enough

I turn 58 later this month and I can attest to the fact that most of my life I have been “almost good enough” in pretty much most of what I have set out to do. In school, I was almost good enough to be called a good student. My peers probably liked me because I was good for helping with the grading curve with my anemic grades. When I was playing sports, most might very well have described me as almost good enough…..to be good, at least at some of the things I was able to do. In my first career as a farmer, I was almost good enough to be classified as a good farmer. I might have needed more time and more results in my portfolio to get that decided but left after 17 years while still under the direction of my father. In my second career as a salesman, I was almost good enough to be labeled as a successful salesman. Able to make a decent living but never able to get over the hump and be considered an outstanding salesman. And in what I am doing today for a career, I once again suppose I could be in that description of being almost good enough. I have been able to build a little bit from my first year, into recent years, my clientele. On this next one, there might be some that disagree with me, but as a husband and a father, I’m almost a good one. I’m almost good enough to be called a good husband and father. I know I have usually put myself ahead of my family in many things. I should have played games with my kids more and I should put my wife ahead of my own desires but I have rarely done that. So once again I qualify for “almost good enough” and that has become a way to describe me.

What about my faith you might ask. Once again I can honestly say that at one time, maybe even yet today, I was almost good enough. For over 50 years I would likely have been called a good Christian by those around me. That would probably be because I was always going to church and doing things like serving on the church council and teaching vacation Bible class to teenagers. To be sure, I earned that moniker of “Almost Good Enough.” All those things make no difference to salvation. I was almost good enough but there is no grade curve for receiving His grace.

To be blunt, I needed to be smacked upside the head to finally learn that Salvation is not something that one can be almost good enough to receive. When I looked at the picture of me lying in the street in a pool of blood after getting hit by the hit and run driver while walking home, I was able to finally see that I was lacking in giving all of my trust to Jesus. It was then that I was able to see that I was not in as much control of my life as I thought I was. I had tried to convey the appearance to my peers that I was a good football player, a decent baseball player, an up and coming farmer, a budding superstar salesman. I was nothing. Simply nothing without His grace to embrace.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have much ground to cover and my faith is in its infancy and it needs to be strengthened each and every day. I am more than good enough at sinning against the Word of God. One of the few things that I can claim to be pretty good at. I must choose to be better and to live more Christ-like each day.