So, everyone now ends their emails with “Best” or “My best.” Best regards? Best wishes? Best of luck? I’m the best? You’re the best? No clue. I think it means “I’m in a hurry but I need to put some sunshine here before my name. I don’t have time to think about it, I want to sound cool and hip. Something thoughtful like “Sincerely” or “Yours truly” or “Your friend” takes time and involves risk. So . . . since “Best” is easy, fast and has momentum, I’ll type it and be outta here.
I think God would end His emails with “My best.”
Growing up in the South, I was taken to a small church in the textile mill village near where we lived. There was lots of love, lots of food when people died, and lots of bad theology.
“You need to do what the Bible says, Regi. You want God’s best for your life, not his second best.”
God’s “second best”? Seems like an oxymoron. Can you imagine our perfect God with a “runner-up” will?
I think God’s “second best” is the natural order of things. It’s life when you leave Him out. It’s what you get when you go your own way. It’s the way of life for people who don’t know Jesus. It’s the path to problems for those who do.
Our fulfillment in life . . . our joy . . . our peace . . . is connected to how much of God we include in our lives. His best gets better the more we let Him in.
Is Jesus my best friend? Do I worship Him? Seek and obey His unique guidance every day? Do I love my wife as Christ loved the church? Do I love my kids and not “exasperate” them? Have I surrendered to His call to a unique role in His kingdom? Have I collapsed into His will for my life and discovered my destiny?
“For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.' ” -- Acts 17:28
This is where I find God’s best. He’s peace in the big stuff and the little stuff. The stuff of eternity and the stuff of the next five minutes. When I’m remembering Him constantly, seeing His hand in my life, thanking Him for everything, praising Him silently, and obeying every unction He puts in my heart. That’s God’s best.
Question: Are you experiencing God’s best . . . or the world’s second best?
