Before the holidays, I was working on a customer situation at my working place. We had a team assembled together to deal with the situation that customer has just experienced. After all, customer’s satisfaction is always the number one priority to my company :-). Depending upon how big the impact is, sometimes, this could consume a lot of resources and time before we could calm down the customer. In some rare cases – when the customer is extremely dissatisfied or just grouchy in nature – we would need to grant a “field return”, per his / her request. This lets me think of an interesting phenomenon.

After Christmas, my wife and kids decided to stroll around the local mall for relaxation, and may be, finding a good deal. The parking lot at the mall was packed with cars. There were many deal seekers filled with various department stores and interestingly, there were “lines of product return” in their customer service areas too – I could see piles of “returned products” around the service areas. Apparently, customers returned the products they purchased before Christmas, due to various reasons. They could due to the product is defective or it is not favorable by the receiver.  If you were the storeowner, what do you think or how do you feel? This could mean “reduced revenue and income” inevitably 🙁

In all honesty, I think you would agree with me that there is no “perfect” man made product in the market. Statistically speaking, there always exists a “buyer risk” in buying a product that could be potentially out of specification or is defective.  Therefore, the producer would need to implement a “field return” process to warrant ‘satisfied’ customers.

Now let’s look at ourselves. Why nowadays there are so many complaints against our physical or outward appearances in this world? Thus, there are numerous methods and products in the market to teach us how to get thinner, to have better looking, or to project better image, etc.  You may ask, “Is God messing up His creation? Can we file a ‘field return’ request against Him?” Well, not really! The book of Genesis told us that we were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). In addition, it was very good when God saw everything that He had made (Genesis 1:31a). Therefore, we can conclude that we were created “perfectly” from the beginning.  It could because of the fall of Adam and Eve that damages us – God’s creation 🙁

The ‘perfection’ in the creation hinted us two aspects. Apostle Paul told us that we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 我們原是他的工作，在基督耶穌裡造成的，為要叫我們行善，就是神所預備叫我們行的‧(Ephesians 2:10). Paul indicated to us that each one of us is “unique and precious” in God’s eye because we were created in Christ Jesus. In addition, each one of us was created to have a purpose – to do good works. If we understand these two aspects, then we know that we are perfect in God’s eye, as long as we are ‘in Christ’ and follow His command to do good works. We may not be satisfied with our outward appearance now, but there is no need to ask for a “field return” because we will be returning to be “perfect” upon Christ’s second coming.

My dear brothers and sisters, at the end of year 2012, let’s setting a goal to be perfect in God’s eye in the year of 2013. May He bless your resolution and not asking for a ‘field return’ by the end of 2013!