God’s Perspective on Excellence

My wife and I were entertaining friends when we got on the subject of writing books. I told our guest I was not the best healer in the world. “If you want to see a really gifted healer,” I said, “Go hang out with David Hogan.”

I’m not the most knowledgeable or the most proficient healer, but with the little knowledge I do have, I was able to write a decent book on the subject, because in all honesty—I’m probably a better writer than I am a healer. There’s still so much about healing I don’t understand. Sometimes I feel unworthy of the questions people ask me. That night I had a dream:

In the dream, I was taking care of patients with a strange medical condition I didn’t know anything about. They had this fluid in some kind of container that was somehow attached to their body. I was supposed to monitor this fluid. I didn’t know what the fluid was and I didn’t know how to monitor it. I felt very uncertain about how I was supposed to take care of these patients. So I did the best I could and tried to make sure nothing bad happened to them while they were in my care. At the end of the dream, I was given an award for providing excellent care for my patients. That was the end of the dream.

When I awoke, I was a little shocked. How could anyone give me an award for providing good patient care when I had no clue what was wrong with my patients, what that fluid was, or how I was supposed to monitor it?

It didn’t make sense.

Later that day, as I thought about the dream, I also thought about the book I wrote and how I still don’t have all the answers to the questions people have about healing. And then it dawned on me what the Lord was saying in the dream. (This is a word of instruction for all of us):

It doesn’t matter to God if you have things all figured out. It doesn’t matter if you can answer people’s questions correctly. It doesn’t matter if you feel pretty clueless about healing or deliverance, or anything else He’s asked you to do. It doesn’t matter if you feel incompetent or incapable. What matters to God is that you do the best you can with the little information and talent you have.

Be a good steward of what resources and knowledge He’s given you and He’ll fill in the gaps of your knowledge and skill. Excellence doesn’t require complete understanding. All it requires is diligence and a sincere desire to serve in whatever way you can.