Good Versus Best

I was reading an interesting article today on the health care reform bill that's currently before the Senate. Here's a link to the article so you can read it for yourself: Obama resists as liberals attack health care bill.
But what precipitated my blog entry tonight wasn't the reform bill. It was actually a quote in the article from former President Bill Clinton. Clinton said it would be "a colossal blunder" to let the bill die. Then he said, "America can't afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
Wow. Let's read that one more time: "America can't afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
That is the polar opposite of God's perspective. From God's point of view, what we deem as "good" is often the fiercest enemy to His best for us, His perfect will.
Look at Abraham and Sarah, and their debacle with Hagar and Ishmael (Gen. 16). Desperate to force God's plan to happen in her timing, Sarah urged Abraham to take matters into his own hands and have a son with her maidservant, Hagar. That plan blew up in Sarah's face when a pregnant Hagar decided that she was better than her mistress. Hagar's pregnancy wasn't God's perfect plan for Abraham and Sarah. God's perfect plan and His everlasting covenant would be through Isaac, not Ishmael, and God refused to budge on that point (Gen. 17:15-21).
Oh, how we screw things up when we rush things, desperate to realize some semblance of the promise of "better" or "more," rather than waiting for God's best. God doesn't want His children to settle for "good." He wants us to wait on Him, to trust Him to provide His best (Ps. 27:14; Ps. 147:11; Ps 37; Is. 40:31; Rom. 12:2). Anything else is settling for less.