God Can Bless Our Imperfect Efforts

The morning I took this picture, I had attended a revival the night before. The service was extraordinary, and this morning’s eastern sky was also. I had wondered if everyone’s actions the night before were authentic, but I realized that judging others was not my place. I know God cannot lie, and God can bless our imperfect efforts.

Similarly, this sky didn’t seem authentic. It was beautiful, but someone had added some colored lights reflecting off the clouds. I know God made the sky and the clouds, and the man-made lights would not have mattered without God’s creation. The morning sky was still a blessing, even with the artificial lights shining before the sunrise. Again, I thought, God can bless our imperfect efforts.

Sadly, many fixate on Ecclesiastes 1:9, which reads: “… there is nothing new under the sun.” Meanwhile, we often fail to enjoy God’s spectacular creation and take it for granted. Sadly, just as some ignore the morning, some ignore God’s powerful messages delivered by ministers.

Church Leader in Despair

Once, there was a man who wrote a letter expressing his dilemma. He noted that he was suspended between sorrow and hope, seized by a thousand storms and living as a dying man. The man was Pope Gregory. The year was 1075. The letter was to William The Conqueror. The pope also confided to a friend that he often prayed that God release him to die or to use him for the good of the Church. Two years before, he had written that he would rather die than live in such perils. Nothing but trust in God and the prayers of good men could save him from despair. Pope Gregory believed the whole world was lying in wickedness. Even the high officers of the Church were thirsty for gain and glory rather than be friends of religion and justice.

Pope Gregory excited in his age the highest admiration and the bitterest hatred. Opinions about his policies and practices are still divided, but denying his ability, energy, earnestness, and achievements is impossible. (History of the Christian Church Volume V, page 10) Sure, there were many flaws with the Catholic Church, but God blessed the world for: “The princes of the Middle Ages were mostly ignorant and licentious despots; while the popes, in their official character, advocated the cause of learning, the sanctity of marriage, and the rights of the people. It was a conflict of moral with physical power, intelligence with ignorance, religion with vice.” (History of the Christian Church Volume V, page 35) Why did this work? Because God can bless our imperfect efforts.

Another Church Leader in Despair

Pope Gregory was not the first church leader to feel the way he did. Acts 12 tells the story of Peter’s miraculous escape from prison. Peter, another flawed man who had denied Jesus three times, became a Christian leader. Over a thousand years before Gregory, Peter was involved in a bleak dilemma. Not only was he in a prison surrounded by guards, Peter had two guards chained to him while he slept. An angel came to him, removed his chains, and told him to get up quickly and put on his clothes. The angel and Peter walked out of a locked prison completely unnoticed!

Acts 12:11-18 reads:

 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”

When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”

“You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.

In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter.

For God, all things are possible.

The passage reads, “In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter.” Please notice that even the followers of Jesus were surprised that their prayers were answered. Even Peter didn’t think his escape was real at first, but merely a vision. There was no doubt that weakness was evident in the early Church.

As I have written before, for God, all things are possible. These weak and imperfect Christians are helpful for God. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 tells us how God used Paul’s weakness.

I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Dear reader, don’t wait for a perfect leader or a perfect group of people to revive your church congregation or nation. God’s grace is sufficient for you to step up and be a leader. Listen to what God is telling you, and remember, God can bless our imperfect efforts. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. God is still using imperfect people to help Him bring blessings to people in a “world lying in wickedness.”