As mentioned in my last post, I just enjoyed a wonderful trip to the Sacramento area. Spring has sprung over there, as the trees were in bloom everywhere you looked.

I kept saying, over and over, “God does SUCH good work!”

Melissa wrote a wonderful post on excellence last week, over at the Living Proof Ministries Blog. As I perused the comments, I was blown away by one in particular and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since:

“I haven’t wanted excellence in quite a while; I got preoccupied with enduring.”

Excellence vs. Enduring. Is it just me, or do you also fall into the latter category more often than the former? We get so bogged down with just getting through the day – being so overwhelmed by it all – that excellence in whatever we put our hand to never even occurs to us.

As I was looking through my pictures of these beautiful trees, the thought came to me that God didn’t have to make the trees beautiful. He could’ve just made them utilitarian, plain vegetation that provided oxygen, food and shelter. Yet, He made them cycle through seasons, each displaying its own kind of beauty. He went several steps beyond what was necessary, to make it excellent.

This God of excellence? This is the God who makes it His business to go above and beyond for us, simply because He loves us and to do anything else would go against His nature. This is the God we are called to serve, whether we pack coliseums to share His Word or hold a child tight to do the same. We are not called to endure the numbered days of this life, but to live out each one with an excellent display of the beauty God has planted in each one of us.

Let’s go above and beyond today, through our excellent God and FOR Him.

Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ. Colossians 3:23-24 NLT