Perfection
Published by Steve Copland at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 by Steve Copland
Cover Photograph "Reach" by Donald Boyd, New Zealand
All rights reserved solely by the author. The author guarantees all contents are original and do
not infringe upon the legal rights of any other person or work. The author expressly allows the
copying of this book for the purposes of helping people to come to know perfection.
All Biblical quotes are taken from the New International Version.
The 'fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'
but love is the perfection of it.
The Author
What is Perfection?
A little boy is playing on the beach. He scoops handfuls of sand into a plastic container, pats it
down, holds his hand over the top and quickly flips it up-side-down. Very carefully, he lifts the
container off the packed sand and sits back to see the result. A piece of sand has stuck to the
container and there's a broken corner on his sandcastle. Frustrated, he knocks it down, flattens the
sand and starts again.
A girl is picking wild flowers to take to her mother. She holds the stems and inspects the petals.
This one is out of shape, that one has been partially eaten by an insect, another has a brown spot.
She rejects them all until she finds that one which looks perfect. She picks it, a smile on her face as
she runs to her mother and offers the gift.
A guy is cleaning his car. He isn't religious in any way. Indeed, if I asked him his opinion about
spiritual perfection he would likely tell me he never thinks about it. He soaps up the car, rinses it
off, dries it with another cloth and steps back for a look. He walks around the vehicle searching for
a spot he may have missed. Finding one, he rubs and rubs until it's gone. Then he gets his wax and
does the whole 'wax on, wax off' thing until that car is shining like a new one.
A teenage girl is choosing a pair of shoes. Her boyfriend is sitting on a chair in the shop trying
to look interested and wondering how on earth she knows which ones look better or worse 'cos they
all look much the same to him. She stands in front of the mirror; she turns, lifts her foot and puts it
down. She looks to him for an opinion and he nods encouragingly. As far as he's concerned she
looks good in any of them. However, she pulls them off, takes them back to the shelf and tries
another pair.
A young man stayed at my apartment the night before his wedding. The next morning he got up
early and went for a hair cut. On his return he dressed for the wedding. New, white, pristine shirt,
black bowtie, dark suit and immaculately polished shoes. After everything was on, he stood in front
of the mirror trying to get a disobedient lock of hair to sit in the place he truly believed it should be.
He patted, he coaxed and fiddled with it for several minutes, combing and combing. When he was
done, it looked exactly the same to me; I couldn't see the difference at all, but he did.
