Perfectionism is a sickness. I know some of you may disagree with me. Striving for excellence is something many of us are passionate about (myself included). But anything that causes you to feel as if you are not good enough (in any area of life) is not of God.
Only God is perfect (Romans 3:11). His blood covers all of our imperfections. His perfect love sees past our faults to the beauty of who He made us to be. But make no mistake, His love always SEES our faults. Jesus blood does NOT have some magical blinding effect on our Heavenly Father. He sees our faults and loves us anyway because of who He is and what Jesus has done. Many of us SAY we believe this to be true but when it comes right down to it, we still beat ourselves up for the innate imperfections of our own humanity. We have no problem believing we will be perfect “one day” in the “sweet by and by” when we get to heaven and are TRULY one with Christ. But the miracle of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is that we don’t have to wait for heaven. We are one with Christ as soon as we believe and confess Him as Lord! (Romans 10:9, Galatians 2:19-21)
This is my struggle with perfectionism. For my entire life I have said I believed one things but internally lived another. I know that Jesus was perfect so I don’t have to be but in my thought life I continued to try to work for this free gift of grace. I thought that I believed in the fullness of God’s perfect love but what I really believed falls painfully short. When I truly evaluated my beliefs I realized that I only had enough faith to believe that God loved the “good” parts of me. This caused varying levels of self-hatred in my heart. I thought that I had to hate the parts of me that aren’t beautiful or perfected in Christ. I thought that hating these parts of myself would make it easier to change myself, to perfect myself. So I struggled each day to push toward perfection.
I was struggling in my own efforts. I forgot (or maybe never truly accepted) that only God can really change a person for the better. All my efforts are nothing more than disgusting rags in the sight of God. It was like picking up used toilet paper and trying to clean myself up with it. (Isaiah 64:6) (Sorry for that mental picture but this is the true translation of that verse lol.) It is impossible to be perfect in our own strength. How can something imperfect ever hope to create perfection?
I went to my good, good Heavenly Father and I asked Him to help me stop struggling in my own useless efforts. His answer was both simple and difficult (as His answers often are). I have to learn to love myself. REALLY love myself. Every part of who He has made me. Not just the “good” parts. Not just the parts of myself that I like. For my whole life my thought process has been, “yes, I’m beautiful… except this or that part.” “Yes, God loves me…. except for that one things hidden deep away in my heart.” God is showing me now that this way of thinking has greatly hindered my spiritual growth for FAR too many years. (It has also caused me to distrust people around me and keep them at arm’s length.) Hating my imperfections causes me to hide. And anything I hide is not available for God to change or perfect for His glory.
Then He led me to a song by Kristene Mueller called Redemption. (I literally don’t even remember downloading this music and have no idea who this artist even is!) The lyrics say, “Redemption is so much better than perfection.”
This is the true message of the cross. Jesus made a better way than us having to struggle for righteousness in our strength!
I thought that being my own version of perfect would bring glory to God but it actually had the opposite results. Constantly trying to be my own version of perfect is basically like telling God that I don’t need His perfect gift because I can handle things on my own. It sounds so ridiculous! But this is what I was doing.
In Song of Songs it talks about being “dark yet lovely.” (Song of Songs 1:5) She is basically saying she is imperfect but still beautiful. I truly believe this is how God sees us. He knows our imperfections more intimately than even we ourselves do but He still loves us. It is not a pitying, “I feel sorry for you” kind of love. It is a powerful, “there is no one I love better” kind of love! Later in Song of Songs the Lover cries out, “let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For you voice is sweet and your face is lovely!” (Song of Songs 2:14) God doesn’t want us to hide away from Him in shame, He wants us to run to Him open and unafraid.
If you notice that I have not been wearing makeup in most of my pictures, or that I am posting everything unedited, know that this is me trying to love myself today, right now. I’m working every day to understand and believe that God loves this current version of who I am JUST AS MUCH as that “one day,” perfected version of me. And I am trusting that all of my friends, family, and loved ones love me as well. So I hope you enjoy all the pics of me making weird faces and/or standing awkwardly because I probably didn’t know a picture was being taken. I am learning to appreciate these parts of myself!
