It’s taken me a lot longer to get to part 2 of this post than I thought it would, mostly because I’ve been too tired to form coherent thoughts. Ironically, that exhaustion is what I want to write about…
A little over a week ago, I posted the lyrics to the Billy Joel song Vienna. I like the song, first of all, because I like Billy Joel, and second of all, because I can relate to it. It’s about a person who constantly feels pressure to perform, to live up to impossibly high standards; a person who lives with the constant fear that everything they are running around trying to build is little more than a house of cards that could be knocked over by the next gentle breeze to blow past. I can relate to it because I know a little about that kind of self-inflicted pressure.
As a self-proclaimed perfectionist, I spend a lot of time worrying about things that don’t matter. I fret over details that aren’t important. I waste a lot of energy trying to control things that are beyond my control. And, honestly, it’s all gotten very exhausting.
The bottom line is, I’m tired. I’m tired of feeling like a failure every time I don’t achieve an unrealistically high standard that nobody but me expects me to live up to. I’m tired of being so busy trying to perfect myself and everything around me that I miss out on actually living my life. I’m tired (literally!) of not being able to sleep because I’m stressed about some situation or another that’s completely beyond my control.
I know that God desires my heart, not my perfection, but I feel that the former is somehow worthless without the latter. In other words, my reality is that in order to please God, I must be perfect. Somehow, I’ve come to I believe that every time I fail or fall short, I am disqualifying myself from God’s acceptance and approval. I know that perfection is not possible, but at the same time, I don’t feel like God could love me without it.
My friend Karina wrote a song that has lyric “I’m blown away at the thought of my mistakes meaning nothing.” That’s what I can’t wrap my mind around: the idea that my screw-ups don’t really matter to God. I’m not talking about blatant sin issues here; what I’m talking about is the reality that God honors sincerity of heart, even when it is seemingly marred by flawed execution.
I want to really understand what it means that God loves me and delights in me, even in my weakness and immaturity. I want more than a superficial head knowledge of God’s love. I want to experience it in a way that changes me. I want to understand it on a level where it affects everything: my opinions about myself, my decision making processes, my security in relationships and my perspective about the future. I want God’s love to completely transform who I am.
Filed under: God, Life, Reflections
What you wrote is so true! For me, this desire for perfection manifests itself in a different way. I want to be perfect in my abandonment to God and anything less feels like not enough for a real encounter. I often question, how can I encounter God in the same way as someone whose pursuit is more perfect (15 hours a day praying compared to my lesser number). Your post reminded me that it’s the “yes” in my spirit that counts; that I am abandoned as is possible for me.
I think perfection has a lot to do with comparasion. Wanting to be as good/spiritual as others. We need to be satisfied with the portion God has given us.
(Without reading the above comment)
I am BLASTED by your post here. First of all, yay! You quoted me indirectly! (Just so you know, mentioning my name in relation to a quote is so okay with me.. hehe. You can call me whatever you want to; Karie or Karina or whatever, without the last name. JUST FYI; I don’t care either way.)
Furthermore, I really want to encourage you to loosen up. I know that you know that aiming for perfection is obviously going to do more damage than good, since you typed it yourself, so telling you that isn’t going to do much. I’ll pray that God smacks you with the revelation instead of you reading it off of a page for the tenth time. The whole legalistic thing is just discouraging and disappointing in general. I always try to follow the rules, but when it comes down to it, I fail as much as I succeed. Thank God that that doesn’t matter, like we talked about last night. Forgiven sin is forgiven. Learn to forgive yourself as purely as God does. It’s tough to keep from feeling that you’re wearing God’s patience thin, but you AREN’T. Infinite mercy… it’s a strange concept.
Thank you, thank you, THANK you! You helped me so much last night. I practiced more when I got home and I’m getting a handle on my newest tool! HA!
Karina-Cool, I added your name. I just wasn’t positive if you’d want me using it or not initially, so that’s why I didn’t. And yes, definitely pray that God will smack me with the revelation! It’s like, I get it, but I don’t really GET it, you know?
Stephanie-I agree that perfection has a lot to do with comparison. I think it also has a lot to do with how you view yourself before God.-not really understanding that God wants you around and feeling like you have to earn your way there, etc.
This was a great post and brings up that age old discussion of salvation through faith and faith without works and being under the law and all. I remember when I was first impacted with the concept that God delights in me even in my weakness, and then subsequently over and over and over again being hit with that truth.
It is still sinking in, but the thing I’m trying to wrap my mind around is that at the same time that its true that God does delight in us even when we fail, even when we make mistakes as long as there is that “yes” in our hearts, we are still to pursue 100% obedience (perfection) (Matthew 5:48) at the same time knowing that we are pursuing a God who is infinitely merciful, abounding with love and kindness and soooo slow to anger. Sometimes I have been caught up in a false belief about grace, that God’s grace covers all the things I do, so I get lax about my pursuit, and my “yes” in my heart becomes a “maybe” or a “yes, until this happens…” Its a dual reality that we must look at. God wants complete obedience yet so loves us and is TRULY HAPPY and SATISFIED with us when we fail to be 100% obedient, AS LONG AS we still have that “yes” in our heart pursuing Him. (At least that is where I’m at in my thought process so far… God’s still working it out in me. I’ll let you know when I get more.)
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