I INTRODUCED last time, with a rather lengthy opening, a piece written by one of my favorite expositors J.R. Miller, titled The Beauty of the Imperfect. I discover Pastor Miller on Grace Gems many years ago.
“If any 19th century American Christian writer warrants reprinting, it is J. R. Miller! His writing style is delightfully smooth, his insights are spiritual diamonds on every page, and his pastoral applications are delivered with the skill of a well-seasoned physician of souls.” (Pastor Bill Shishko) http://www.gracegems.org/D/miller.htm
I’M going to keep my introduction short this time, and get right to where we left off with a lengthier posting from The Beauty of the Imperfect. One thing however, as this is considered a public domain document, I have added a few quotes and edits to the original. Other than that, JR Miller’s words are intact. Enjoy!
In the inexorable blessings of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2
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The imperfect in a godly life—is really the perfect in an incomplete state.
A blossom is beautiful, although compared with the ripe, luscious fruit, whose prophecy it carries in its heart—it seems very imperfect. The young shoot is graceful in its form and wins admiration, although it is but the beginning of the great tree which by and by it will become. A child—is not a man. How feeble is infancy! Its powers are undeveloped, its faculties are untrained—it is yet without wisdom, without skill, without strength, without ability to do anything valiant or noble. It is a very imperfect man. Yet who blames a child for its incompleteness, its immaturity, its imperfectness? There is beauty in its imperfection.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – TR
or
“Do who you are, with what you are, where you are.” – anon
We are all children of greater or lesser growth. Our lives are incomplete, undeveloped. But if we are living as we should, there is real moral beauty in our imperfectness. It is a natural and necessary process, in the unfolding of the perfect.
A child’s work in school may be very faulty, and yet be beautiful and full of encouragement and hope, because it shows faithful endeavor and worth improvement.
A writing teacher praises his scholars, as he inspects the page they have written. He tells them, or certain of them, that they have done excellently. You look at their work, however, and you find it very faulty indeed, the writing stiff and irregular, the letters crudely formed, and you cannot understand why the teacher should speak so approvingly of the scholars’ work. Yet he sees real beauty in it because, when compared with yesterday’s page, it shows marked improvement.
“I’m not what I need to be; but thanks be to God, I’m not where I used to be.” – anon
So it is in all learning. The child actually walked three steps alone today—and the mother is delighted with her baby’s achievement. These were its first steps. A little girl sits at the piano and plays through the simplest exercise with only a few mistakes, and all the family are enthusiastic in their praise of the performance. As music it was most meager and faulty. If the older sister, after ten years of music lessons and practice, were able to play no better than the child has done—there would have been disappointment, and no commendation. The imperfect playing was beautiful because, belonging in the early stages of the child’s learning—it gave evidence of faithful study and practice.
A mother found her boy trying to draw. Very crude were the attempts—but to her quick eye and eager heart, the figures were beautiful. They had in them the prophecies of the child’s future, and the mother stooped and kissed him in her gladness, praising his work. Compared with the artist’s masterpiece when the boy had reached his prime—these rough sketches had no loveliness whatever. But they were beautiful in their time, as the boy’s first efforts.
The same is true of all faithful efforts to learn how to live. We may follow Christ very imperfectly, stumbling at every step, realizing but in the smallest measure, the qualities of ideal discipleship; yet if we are doing our best, and are continually striving toward whatsoever things are lovely—our efforts and attainments are beautiful in the eye of the Master, and pleasing to him
In the New Testament, a distinction is made between perfection and blamelessness.
…to be continued
