Do you do good enough?
The vast majority of Christians ask themselves this question regularly. I can’t stop it even though I have encounter it throughout the years of pastoral ministry. Is what I do, good enough?
Today, Jennifer asked for a special lunch—Eggs Benedict. It’s a tricky thing to make for some people. Now let me just say that I love to cook. I love to cook for my family. It brings me joy to follow a recipe, or duplicate something from memory, that I have cooked before. The last time that I made the dish it turned out very well. So I was happy to make it again for her. Eggs Benedict is recipe that requires some attention and practice to do well. It is Jennifer’s favorite breakfast item. I learned to make the sauce a few months ago after reading a number of recipes and watching a few videos that demonstrate the process. The first time that I made Eggs Benedict it tasted great. Then, each time since that first offering, I have completed the meal properly and enjoyed making it for the family.
For those not familiar with hollandaise sauce, it can be a bit tricky to make. The primary issue with the sauce comes from beating the egg yokes a lot, while adding melted butter, all the while heating the sauce in a double boiler to cook it gently and slowly. You do kinda a need three hands to do it well, but it can be done. If you heat the yokes too fast then you will scramble the eggs. Cook it too slow and the ingredients won’t combine into that yummy sauce. This is a delicate balance. Once the sauce is made it needs to be removed quickly from the heat but watched carefully. If it cools too far then the hollandaise will either solidify, separate, or both. It is still edible in any of those forms, but it doesn’t look good. And as many people have said over the years, we eat with our eyes first.
This time, while cooking the turkey bacon, my sauce split. . . badly. It clumped up and the added butter split from the egg yoke totally. The whole thing went from a nice shade of yellow to an off shade of yellow-green. Still edible. Still tasty. All the components of hollandaise sauce were present, but the sauce was wrong. I was. . . irritated.
My poached eggs were perfectly cooked. The turkey bacon was nicely browned and crisped the way we like it. Emma’s bagel was toasted and I was ready to plate the meal. . . but again the sauce split. It clumped on the plate rather the nicely spread across the egg. Again, I was irritated. This is not what I set out to offer my hungry family.
But then my loving wife, who asked for her favorite meal to be made at lunch said, “Honey, it's fine. It tastes great. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” (How is it that wives have the exact phrasing that is necessary in such moments? It does not matter.) What I made was good enough. Emma loved her. Jennifer ate every bite. They were happy. The dogs watched them eat longingly. But I was neither happy or satisfied.
Do you do, good enough, church?
In this case, I did good enough, or should I say, I did the best that I could do. Isn’t that all that God asks of us? We do not need to get down on ourselves when things don’t work our perfectly according to our plans. Instead, take a moment today and notice the times that what you did for God was enough. . . It was all that God asked. Is that the true definition of faithfulness??
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