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Perfection.

According to my MacBook, perfection is “the condition, state or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects. Flawlessness. Superbness. Faultlessness.”

On Sunday, April 11, the University of North Texas played the University of Arkansas. Hope Trautwein, a senior at UNT, pitched a perfect game. Trautwein’s career with the University of North Texas shows in second place in most pitching records for the school. On Sunday, April 11, she made not just a school record but a collegiate softball record. While only a few perfect games have been thrown, Hope Trautwein pitched the perfect, perfect game.

Perfect, perfect game? Yep, 21 batters faced. 21 strikeouts. 21 batters in a row. Not a single hit. Not an assisted out. Twenty-one ladies stepped up to bat and all 21 struck out. This had never occurred in college softball.

Only once has this occurred in baseball when Ron Necciai pitched a perfect, perfect game while playing in the Class-D Appalachian League striking out 27 batters in nine innings May 13, 1952, before moving on up to the Pittsburg Pirates in August of that year. Perfection is hardly ever seen.

We get excited about watching a pitcher throw a perfect game. Heck, these days we get excited to watch a pitcher simply throw a full game, perfect or not. If you’ve ever watched a perfect game, you know no one is supposed to mention this. You don’t talk about it. Baseball and softball are sports where even non-supertitious people believe in jinxing what could happen. Perfection is hardly ever seen. It’s great to know that God doesn’t desire perfection. He knows we will mess up. He knows what we have done. He knows the thoughts we have that no one else ever hears. He knows those mess-ups we have had that we have hidden so well from those around us. The only perfect person who ever lived, we killed him on a cross for our sins and shortcomings. Perfection is hardly ever seen.

God doesn’t require perfection. He requires loyalty, trust, love. He requires that we let go of who we think we are and allow Him to make us into what He desires.

Romans 3:23 lets us know ain’t a one of us perfect. But if you keep reading, we see that Jesus still makes us perfectly whole.

You see, while perfection is hardly ever seen, Jesus desires we die to ourselves and arise out the water perfectly clean and clothed in Him. No perfection needed, just a desire to keep playing the game.

Lord, thank You for making me perfectly whole in You. Through Jesus, amen.