True faithfulness requires giving 100 per cent of effort 100 per cent of the time. The American magazine Insight once published an article by Gary Sheer called ‘Strive for Perfection…or Else!’ It contained some interesting, and possibly alarming facts! The article said that if 99.9 per cent were good enough, 103,260 income tax returns would be processed incorrectly that year…22,000 cheques would be deducted from the wrong bank accounts within that next sixty minutes…12 babies would be given to the wrong parents each day…2 plane landings daily at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago would be unsafe…18,322 pieces of post would be mishandled within that next hour…291 pacemaker operations would be performed incorrectly that year…880,000 credit cards in circulation would turn out to have incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic strips…20,000 incorrect medicine prescriptions would be written within that next twelve months…and 107 incorrect medical procedures would be performed by the end of that day. Those statistics make for quite difficult listening, but they highlight how important it is for us to always give our best in any situation. Of course, we’ll make genuine mistakes, and that’s only natural as we’re not perfect people. But even if we make a mistake, we can draw comfort from knowing that we’ve tried our best, and that God has seen our effort too. There’ll also be times when we’re tired, unwell, or overloaded, so we can’t give 100 per cent effort. And God understands. If we can’t postpone or delegate a task, the best thing to do at those times is to ask God to fill us with His strength and help us find a solution. The Bible says, ‘It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.’ So let’s show the world that we’re are people of integrity, reliability, and faithfulness.
