Flawed (Part 6)

Flawed (Part 6)

James 1:2, 3 "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience."

Try harder. Achieve more. Make no mistakes. Produce perfection. These are the messages the world screams at us in the 21st century. It’s not just a secular message either. The attempt to be perfect has always affected our churches. Worship bands spend hours tweaking musical concepts that will most likely go unnoticed by most. Creative teams spend weeks on video promos, handouts and lighting to compliment a service. Pastors labor for hours over the perfect words for their congregations to tweet. There is nothing wrong with working hard to achieve good results and give our best to what we do. God loves when we use the gifts He has given us for His glory, whether that’s by preaching, teaching, learning or building a business.

One of the biggest causes of self-loathing is the need to “get it right.” We strive for perfection and success, and when we fall short, we feel less than and worthless. What we don't seem to realize is that working toward our goals and being willing to put ourselves out there are accomplishments within themselves, regardless of how many times we fail.

In the Old Testament, the word "avodah" is often used to mean both work and worship. Working hard is no bad thing, and many good things have come out of situations where people have worked furiously hard to achieve brilliant results.But things have escalated. Society today places expectations upon us that are not only unhealthy, but ungodly. Mistakes are no longer lessons to learn from, but public humiliations, which serve only to knock our confidence and thwart our passions. Achieving anything less than perfection is considered a failure. Employees in some of our biggest firms work well into the early hours only to get up at the crack of dawn, all in an attempt to avoid failure. It’s perfection or nothing.

The problem is that by striving to be perfect, we are relying on our own strength and not God’s. That is why people who spend their lives trying desperately to achieve perfection often burn out. The human desire to be perfect means we push God to the side, opting to tap into our own limited power resources rather than drawing from the well of life. In many ways, the shift in society to achieve perfection is a shift that says, “God, we don’t need you anymore, we’ve got this one covered.”

God never calls us to be perfect, but He does call us to be holy. In his first letter, Peter echoes the book of Leviticus when he writes, “Be holy, because I am holy” in 1 Peter 1:16. Holiness is messy. Holiness calls us into situations where what matters is our obedience, not our success rate. God doesn’t judge us with a performance chart or a strategic review. He looks at our hearts, looks for our obedience and takes delight in that. Recognizing this frees us to find our worth and acceptance in God alone. We seek not to please those around us, only God.

We seek to please Him by offering Him a willing and contrite heart, ready to learn from our mistakes and delve into the messiness that is the realm of holiness. As a consequence of this, there is every chance we will see our work results improve, as the pressure is lifted and we begin to do what we do for the glory of God.

True perfection is only and will always be found in God. While we are called to be like Jesus, we must acknowledge that we can never be perfect as He was perfect. Attempting to be perfect is a vain human striving to play God, to bring things under our control, to maintain a vestige of power that we should otherwise surrender.

Instead of berating yourself for messing up and stumbling backward, give yourself a pat on the back for trying, making progress, and coming as far as you have. Focus on progress rather than perfection and on how far you've come rather than how far you have left to go. Your flaws can be overcome.