We all seem to be striving to be perfect. Perhaps, not each of us in the same way. But there is a need within us to be shown to be the best that there can be at something. I wonder where this need springs from? Certainly, not from God. God is perfect and we are not. That is a given and the reason we all need a savior.
So, if not God, then from whom? There can only be one real answer. The author of this strive for perfection can only be Satan. If something is not good and of God, then it is necessarily evil and of Satan.
It goes back to the original sin. Eve and Adam wanted to be like God. They wanted to be perfect. What is bizarre is, that at that time, they were perfect. They were part of the perfect creation of the universe by Jesus.
Still, they wanted something more. They didn’t just want to be perfect. They wanted to be equal to their own creator. They didn’t want to bow down to the Lord as their master.
So, they broke the one rule in their effort to reach that higher level. In doing so, they lost their ability to communicate and bow down before the creator. Instead, they found a new master. Satan became their ruler. Frankly, instead of stepping further up, they stepped much further down. Satan, himself, was a creation of God. So, instead of bowing to the perfection of their creator, they were bowing down to a fallen, broken and evil created being.
So, to this day, each of us and mankind in general, still strive to be perfect. We try to fix all the ills of this world. We look to find cures. We try to figure out how to get ourselves out of the mess we are in. Nothing ever truly works. What disease have we cured? Is the earth covered in peace? Has hunger, abuse, or any other evil thing been eradicated by man by himself?
This need to be perfect and fix ourselves is true of mankind in general but also of each of us. Day in and day out, we look at the mess of our lives. We try to think what we can do to make it all better.
Perhaps a new job? A new set of clothes? A fancy pair of shoes? A new diet? A new spouse? A new sexual identity? No matter what we try, we are doomed to failure. Man is not a perfect being. Something that is imperfect can never create perfection. It simply isn’t possible. Our flaws will work into everything we touch, everything we create, even the things that we say.
In this search for perfection, we will do all sorts of things. I have been guilty of this, as we all have been. I used to think that if I worked harder, I would be best at the job. So, I worked longer hours.
The result was, my bosses then expected that kind of work on an on-going thing. My work week went from 40 to 60 to even more hours. My reviews didn’t improve. I didn’t attain perfection. If anything, I made it more difficult to have a good and well-balanced life.
My husband got used to the extra salary I made and, as his job was based on how much he did, he started working less hard and spending more time talking. He admitted as much to me. Once, I realized the futility of it all, between work expectations and the need for my salary at home, my life became an unending spiral of overwork.
So the majority of my time was spent away from my family – my husband and my children. Because of this attitude of lack of time and attention, my marriage fell apart. There were other things, too, that factored in. But if you look at the heart of the issue, my spending too much time working on things that didn’t matter cost me in terms of things that mattered so much more.
When the company I worked for was purchased by a Fortune 500 company, I was able to successfully step back from the precipice I was on and to spend much more time with my children. Unfortunately, it was about a year to late to salvage my marriage.
But God is good and about a year later, he brought my second husband and me together.
Funny thing is, we had worked together for seven years by this time. We started at the company the same week, if not the same day. What I recall most about him is that during first week, at a company function, he took the last chicken salad sandwich and left me with tuna. I like tuna, but didn’t want to deal with fishy, onion breath. So, let’s just say he made a big, fat, not great impression on me.
It got even better (and I do mean this sarcastically.) He would come to my office and ask for employee pricing on the software we developed. He would ask for permission to do things. I worked in the Legal department and we were there to answer those questions. The thing is, no one else ever asked. They just took stuff and expected us to look the other way.
I jokingly called him a boy scout and later found out that, indeed, he had been a boy scout. While I was frustrated with his questions, I took on the tasks to find or create answers. Let’s say, it involved a lot of extra work at a time when I was working those 60+ hour weeks.
I never could remember engineers names though I dealt with them frequently. His name I remembered because of the work. I thought about hiding whenever he wandered into our office space but I could not bring myself to do it.
Years later, when I was single, I remembered his honesty. Even though I had determined to stay single until my children were grown, God had a different idea. And it involved that obnoxious, cute, and honest engineer.
Still, our relationship is not perfect. We neither expect it to be. We’ve gone from a balanced work pair to one where he does much more work than I do. I am kind of decorative these days. I sit and then I stand then I sit some more. I guess I could strive to be a perfect sitter and stander but, honestly, my back hurts way to much to even try.
Still that sinful spirit tries to surface from time to time. If you can’t attain perfection, that evil creature starts telling you how worthless you are. How life for others would be better without you. That you, and you alone, are the reason their lives are not perfect.
Boy, that is a hard spirit to fight. It keeps surfacing over and over again. With each new pain, each new loss of independence, there it comes again.
I’ve learned there is only one way to fight it. First, I tell my husband how I am feeling. I know that the thoughts and feelings are not right. But they are there and need to be acknowledged. Essentially, I am confessing my sinful thoughts to my best friend.
Next, I take the sin to God in prayer. I repent of it and ask him for his help to take it away. I ask him to forgive me for thinking that anything he created was not here for a purpose. His purpose, not mine.
I then look to the work that he has given me. Not much, it’s true, but it is the work he needs me to accomplish. In the body of Christ, I am the one person who is set aside to accomplish these tasks. When I think of it from that perspective, I understand that I am not useless because my life has changed. Instead, because my life has changed, I have found my true focus. I’ve slowed way down and could see the work to do that I previously ignored as the days flew by.
I am not striving for perfection, just trying to bring my work to God in a way that pleases him. He is perfection but he knows we are not. Our work will never be perfect on its own.
In fact, the only reason I can talk with God is that he knew we were broken without anyway to fix ourselves.
He sent his son as our savior. Jesus was the perfect being who sacrificed himself so that the rest of us could once again have a relationship with God.
If you are a follower of Christ (and not just someone who fancies themselves Christian because their family always attended this church or that), your relationship is established and you should talk with God daily.
If you have not yet Jesus Christ as your savior, your Messiah, this is the time to do so. You never know when your last day will be. Once you have accepted Jesus as your savior, as God in flesh resurrected, and have truly repented of all of your sins (yes, even those which society says are okay and perfect – they are not perfect or okay to God)), your relationship and communication with God has been repaired.
Pray daily, rely on Jesus as your resurrected King always, ask Father God to help you and the Holy Spirit to be your daily guide. Stop striving for perfection in things of this world and instead look to the perfect being for an example. Learn to follow his way of holiness. He is the one above all others. He is holy and true and he loves you.
Isaiah 48:17-18
This is what the Lord says — your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.
If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea.”