Benjamin Franklin Already Tried

It's a lot like playing Whack-a-mole. I wake up in the morning and think, "Okay, today I'm going to work on my pride." Off I go focusing on being humble, and the next thing you know I'm complaining. I focus on kindness and I start being lazy. I focus on having more faith and begin wasting money on stupid stuff. It drives me crazy because I'm a perfectionist. I want to get it all right all the time.

The thing is that people have been trying to be perfect for a long time. Take Benjamin Franklin for example -- he developed this system for himself that, frankly, sounds exhausting. He called it "the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection." He explains the whole thing in his autobiography.

 

He literally kept track of thirteen virtues every day. When he began keeping his charts as a young man, he figured out some hard truths. He says, "I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined." In the end, (His autobiography was written at the end of his life) this is how he sums up the attempt at "moral perfection":

In truth, I find myself incorrigible with respect to Order; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, tho' I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, tho' they never reach the wished-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor, and tolerable, while it continues fair and legible.

Mr. Franklin might as well be called the 'father of practicality.' He is the man credited with saying, "Well done is better than well said," after all. He didn't give up on his efforts to make himself a better man, even when he realized he'd never be perfect. I like that.

One of the most common objections to living a life of faith I've heard sounds something like this, "Why should I care about Jesus? Look at all those Christians. They're just a bunch of hypocrites." Before I go any further, I'd like to say that the criticism is warranted a lot of the time. Christians have a tendency to be, well ... not very Christ-like.

The unfortunate thing is that people allow themselves to dismiss Christian faith because Christians are works in progress.

If people were capable of being perfect, we wouldn't need Jesus in the first place. The very essence of the Gospel, the very thing that makes it good news, is that Jesus did something for us that we can never do for ourselves. I'm sitting here right now, typing this, and knowing that I won't ever deserve the relationship I have with God. If I fed a million hungry children, it still wouldn't be enough. If I never said a harsh word to anyone for the rest of my life, that wouldn't be enough. If I threw myself in front a train to save a family, it wouldn't be enough.

Christians are supposed to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that should show.

 But the Spirit produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law that says these things are wrong. (Galatians 5:22-23 NCV)

I can say through personal experience that the Holy Spirit doesn't work overnight, but a tree doesn't grow an apple overnight either. It takes time. Let me also say that an apple tree doesn't form an apple because it decides to. It grows apples because of what it is -- an apple tree.  In the same way Christians don't necessarily display love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control because they're trying. Obviously there's an element of effort involved, but essentially these things show up in a person's life because of who that person is in his heart.

When a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit is given to him as a gift. From that moment forward, he's on the path to being transformed. That's all church really is, a family of people in the process of being transformed. Sometimes that process is messy. Don't let yourself miss out just because you're afraid to be in the middle of the mess; that's often where the best stuff is.

It's a relief to know that I don't have to worry about being imperfect. God's grace is enough for us, and I do my best to remember that when someone in my church family is less than perfect, too.

 I've got to keep showing up. Where else can I love and be loved in return? Where else will I be able to talk to others who love God, too? Where else can I find people who know what it's like to fail? Who else will set me straight when I find myself on the wrong path? Where else can people go when they're searching for these same things? I go to worship because it's good for me, and I want to be for other people, too.

I, for one, want to learn from history. Don't try to be perfect. Benjamin Franklin already tried.





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