Perfection is the goal...

Last Sunday, a blown call from the official, Ed Hochuli cost the San Diego Chargers the game.  The call was made with less than a minute to play and Denver down by seven points and about to score.  The quarterback, Jay Cutler took the ball back as if to throw the ball, but while he was taking it back it slipped out of his hands.  The ball was recovered by a San Diego player and meant victory for their team.  The problem was that Ed Hochuli blew the whistle and called the play an incomplete pass, a call that is not reviewable by instant replay.  Denver scored on the next play and then made a two point conversion to win the game.  The Chargers had lost a game they should of won solely because of a missed call by the official.   

Here is an exert from Kevin Acee, a San Diego Union Tribute writer about Hochuli's response to the foul up; 

  

No one, it appears is taking the mistake and its ramifications harder than Hochuli.  "He's devastated," said Mike Pereira, the NFL's supervisor of officials." ...I was talking to Ed within 10 minutes after the game was over, and he was sick.  He's still sick (yesterday).  "Everybody works so hard and wants to be perfect in a game you're not likely to ever be perfect.  I've talked to him three times.  He's really struggling with the fact he made such a bad call."

The reality is nobody is perfect, not in officiating, or any other profession.  To take this a step further nobody is perfect period.  We as believers should be quick to assert that we constantly mess up, but like Hochuli our goal should be perfection in our daily walk with the Lord (see I Peter 1:14-16).  Fortunately for us, unlike the statement above we will reach perfection someday.  Not as a result of our own hard work, or  goodness, but as a result of Christ's transforming ministry in our life.  Philippians 3 tells us that Christ, "will transform the body of our humble state into the body of His glory by the exertion of power which He has even to subject all things to Himself."   

This side of heaven we'll sometimes  have big foul ups that remind us of our former selves, sometimes our mistakes will be minute.  I guess that's what is so amazing about transformation.  God is taking a person who by their very nature ran from Him, and now is changing them into  a holy being in the likeness of His Son.  So often those mess ups remind me of my great need for a Savior, of One who was perfect and exchanges His righteousness with my sin debt.  I hope Ed Hochuli is able to see his mistake in a similar light and bounce back.  

By the way you notice my Green Bay Packers are 2-0 :)

To live is Christ,

Jay