Perfectionism has been part of me for as long as I can remember. I wanted to... no, let me be truthful, I needed to look perfect, get the perfect grades in school, complete the tasks in front of me with perfect accuracy. There was no room at all for the slightest mistake. I had no mercy for my own soul. And if I did mess up by making a wrong decision, or by falling short of my goal, etc., etc., it took me forever to recover from the devastation of facing my imperfection and perceived failure. Thankfully, I am much better now after I have recognized and dealt with many of the effects that childhood sexual abuse has on personality development; I am grateful that I no longer need to keep a perfect house, make perfect decisions, or be perfect at everything I do. I have learned to give myself some breathing room.
But, on another level, the way I view what God expects from me has not been with the same mercy that I have now achieved in the way I view my self-expectations. I can be more relaxed now with my daily "mistakes," but is God not still demanding perfection from me? After all, Matthew 5:48 tells me: "Be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
I have always struggled with this verse, which seems to contradict the internal healing that has allowed me the freedom not to be perfect. Even though I have experienced to some extent the truth that God loves me, how can I possibly obey these words of Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew?
So I honestly wrestle with the idea that God may be asking something of me and I am not hearing and obeying, for whatever reasons, and therefore falling short of His expectations. Maybe you also have faced this dilemma: knowing God loves and forgives, but also seemingly demands perfection just as He is perfect.
I don't know if you would say this was a "divine intervention" to bring truth and light to this issue, but I believe it was. This morning in church my pastor spoke of Matthew 5:28 with new understanding. He explained how Jesus, prior to this verse, was talking about loving our enemies and those who persecute us. And then comes verse 48 about being perfect as God is perfect. What Jesus is truly saying is that loving all people no matter what they do is exactly what God does, and this love and grace is what makes Him perfect. "Gratuitous Grace" my pastor labeled it. So the commandment is not about getting every little detail of my life correct until I reach some humanly impossible level of perfection. It is about allowing myself to love all people the way God loves them. I can't explain it, but somehow grasping this revelatory knowledge was as if someone had removed a heavy burden from my back that has bent me over for years under its weight. Perfectionism as I once knew it was disintegrating as I sat there! What makes God perfect is His love. What will make me perfect is my love. Simply that and no more. So the more I perceive and receive God's love for me, the more I will be able to be love my enemies and obey Jesus' command to be perfect.
I almost jumped out of my seat as my pastor was explaining all this! I wanted to raise my hand as if I were in school so I could share what I was seeing! All of a sudden verses in Ephesians 3:17-19 had new depth of meaning. Paul was so adamant about about wanting the church to be able to "comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height -to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge" because such understanding would allow us to be "filled with all the fullness of God". I had spoken many times in many places about these verses, but it was this morning that I realized for the first time that being "filled with all the fullness of God" was parallel to being "perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect." It meant being filled with all the love and grace for others that God bestows upon me. That ability to love is what fills God. God is love in the truest form. So if I understand the completeness of Christ's love for me, Paul admonishes, then I will be filled with the same love that fills God.
One of the things we always pray for when I meet with the King's Daughter's support group is that we would understand God's love for us in a tangible, palpable way. It can be very hard for abuse victims to believe that God loves us. But we must believe that He does, and that He is good. He wants not only to reveal His love to us, but also to live His love through us. That is ultimate perfection. That is being filled with God's very own fullness.
And that revelation, for me, has changed my life today. I don't think I will ever be the same as I was when I got out of bed this morning. I no longer see God demanding of me an impossible perfection. I see a sacrificial Lamb, pleading with me to simply sacrifice enough of me to allow His love and grace to touch the world around me.
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