Use What Is Available

“But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish!” they answered.

“Bring them here,” he said. Matthew 14:17-18

My company produced a thirty-minute video as part of a national retail promotion.

Ten days before the launch, I received disturbing news: Three seconds of the tape were defective, so the audio had a slight hiccup. You could still understand the speaker, but it wasn’t perfect.

The problem had already been fixed, and all tapes made after this were okay. What about the two-thousand tapes with the slight imperfection?

Waiting until we had enough good tapes would mean missing the start date and ruining the campaign, so I decided to ship the imperfect tapes with a note that they would be replaced as soon as new tapes were available.

The disciples were waiting until everything was just right. Jesus looked at a bigger picture—the people needed to eat, so he went with what was available.

Does your pursuit of perfection get in the way of the mission? Are you waiting for a complete meal when some fish and rolls would be enough?