Articles
Good, Better, Best - Never Let it Rest
My grandmother (“Mema”) used to tell us kids the encouraging phrase “Good, better, best - never let it rest ‘til your good gets better and your better gets best.” Pretty simple phrase, but it gets the point across: Don’t just settle where you are. Keep pushing yourself to the next level. While the phrase is simple, living up to it takes motivation and effort.
Self-motivation isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some of us don’t spring out of bed the first time the alarm clock goes off, or the second or third time for that matter. Some of us may need continual reminders and continual coaching in how we can be better at what we’re doing, while others are more self-driven and put more pressure on themselves than anyone else ever could. Some may fall somewhere in between.
While we may fall in different categories of our self-motivation and effort, the expectations from our holy God are not different. It’s imperative we understand that we’re certainly different in the talents we have, but that we all have talents to use. We may think the difference in our talents are glaringly different, but the reality may be that the glaring difference is our levels of effort.
It’s so easy to grow complacent. If we’re Christians, we may have the temptation to think, “Hey, I got baptized. I did the big thing God wanted me to do.” In reality, baptism is not the “big thing” God wants us to do, it’s the FIRST THING He wants us to do. It opens the door for a lifetime of opportunity to serve the Creator.
Let’s not forget that personal growth and church growth has always been an expectation from God. The lack of growth was a reason the Hebrew writer was having to compose his letter in Hebrews 5:12-14, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
Did you catch that? The writer drives it home in verse 14 that those who are ready for solid food are those who are “trained by constant practice.” Looks like Mema’s saying holds true: “Good, better, best – never let it rest ‘til your good gets better and your better gets best.” Christian or not, we were not made to be complacent. If you’re not a Christian, know that God has a greater purpose for you than where you currently are in your life. Christian, the race isn’t complete once you come out of the water – it’s just begun.
