I desire perfection.
Whether I’m singing a song, making dinner, digging a trench or writing a blog, I want it to be perfect. Every step, ever detail…. flawless. Well, as flawless as my absolutely best can produce.
For most of my life this has been a praised quality. Through out school, work and ministry people knew that if I was given a task that it would be done to the BEST of my ability. My nickname for years was even, “Jo-get-it-done”. StrengthFinder 2.0, by Tom Rath, assessed my top 3 strengths to be Responsibility, Activator and Achiever. Meaning that with the Responsibility and Activator strength that I will be the first one to own responsibility of a goal and I won’t delay in my attempt to accomplishing it. Then top those 2 off with the Achiever strength and you can guarantee that the goal will be achieved at any cost.
Though these 3 strengths can be a trifecta of a great work ethic, they can also become a recipe for disaster when the wrong motive is involved.
What happens when this “strength” begins masking a bigger issue? Desiring excellence is a noble thing, but what happens when you wake up one day and realize that amongst your striving for excellence you are actually striving for glory?
Well, this has been what I’ve been wrestling with the past 5 weeks and it hasn’t been a pretty battle.
I reached out to a fellow racer and friend, Meredith, for some prayer and guidance and the question she challenged me with hit me like a smack to the face.
“In performing, who are you seeking to glorify? Who is being exalted when you perform? Are you seeking to bring glory to the Lord with no consideration to your recognition from it? or are we content making God the headline actor as long as our name is billed right under his as the lead-supporting role on the movie poster of our lives? I read Deuteronomy 3 today and at the end of the chapter, God tells Moses he won't get to enter the promised land himself, and He commands Moses to charge Joshua with the very thing Moses had striven for and worked for and been promised for FORTY YEARS. Literally what Moses had been working for for four decades, he suddenly finds out that he only gets to climb a mountain, look in all four directions and look at what he doesn't get to enter into from a distance. I cried for him! Like, what A FRIGGING LET DOWN. But in chapter 4, Moses's response is nothing more than a "Hey Israel, be sure you don't forget the commandments of the Lord your God, because he's good." There's not a complaint from his lips, not even a plea for God to reconsider or to let him see the Promise Land for five minutes. Because really, Moses wasn't living to enter the Promise Land. He wasn't living to be glorified as "that guy who took us from slavery to promise" or "the leader we once distrusted but who brought everything full circle and is super awesome now." Moses doesn't get to bring Israel full circle because that's God's job, and he never exalted himself to any place other than humble submission to whatever God said with zero attention to what his legacy would be, what the people would say or what he would get out of the deal. I think performance encourages us to live personal-legacy-centered lives when the only thing we should be concerned with at any point is to leave a legacy of God's glory.”
I am asked to live a life of obedience, not performance. Desiring perfection is a God-given desire, however, perfection can only be found in Jesus. The trouble comes when I seek that perfection within myself, my own accomplishments or the people around me. Jesus is the only perfection I truly can attain.
So month 6 on the race has begun and I am entering each day with a new perspective. I’m constantly checking my heart and my motive for the things I am doing. Before I would normally act or do something I quickly ask who will be glorified in this? And if the answer is anything but God I won’t do it. I in no way want to offer the Lord anything less than excellence but my excellence with wrong motive is but filthy rags to God.
And that’s a hard pill to swallow, but necessary for spiritual growth. I just want to honor God and bring Him glory in all I do.
So please keep me in prayer as I pursue Perfection… better stated, as I pursue Jesus.
Always learning,
Jolene
