Serbia. What a place. The people and the culture are simply beautiful. Jesus poured out what seemed like a million blessings on me and my team this month. From the deep relationships we built to the snow we experienced to the sweet apartment we got to live in. And it was like a small slice of normalcy. However, along with normalcy, came temptations and sins I thought I’d “ridden” myself of. Mostly, a little word I like to call PERFECTIONISM.
PERFECTIONISM
Somewhere along the way, we are trained to think that in order to be acceptable in the world’s eyes, we must measure up to some unwritten personal or societal standard of perfection. Often, pride or fear fuels this fixation on doing something perfectly or paralyzes us from acting at all. Perfectionism is a lie that in the doing, we can earn our worth, our value, and our acceptance here on Earth.
GROWING UP
Perfectionism is something that I’ve let define me for years. From as far back as I can remember, I’ve always placed an expectation on myself that I could do it all and do it all flawlessly. Both pride and fear fueled me. I couldn’t let people down once they had set expectations of me. I succumbed to people pleasing and reputation building in order to live a what seemed like a perfect, cookie-cutter life with perfect grades, perfect friends, perfect activities, perfect church community, perfect appearance, perfect personality – I strove for it all.
RECENT YEARS
But, in the end, the exhaustion and the image management and the striving takes a toll on you. It leaves you feeling stressed, frustrated, and discontent.
And I know all of this. I know that according to Romans 3:23, “we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. And I know the joy of Romans 6:23 that says “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. I know that proving myself to the world is fleeting and the “more” and the “better” I desire will never be enough. Only He is enough and I find my identity in Him. I know there is freedom in living life as Shauna Niequist puts it, “lightly, freely, courageously, surrounded only by what brings joy, simplicity, and beauty.”
SERBIA
So, in the last few years, I’ve fought against perfectionism. I’ve surrendered and laid it down at the feet of Jesus time and time again. Yet, still I fell into it this month without even realizing it. Serbia was the most westernized country we had been to in five months, which brought back perfectionist tendencies. With copious WIFI accessibility, I suddenly was reconnected to the web of social media, particularly Instagram. And Instagram is FULL of chronic perfectionists – captions and photographs and feeds scream perfection and I definitely bought in.
ABIDING, NOT STRIVING
Don’t get me wrong, I love the art of crafting stories beautifully and purposefully for God’s glory, particularly through video and photography. But, often my head gets into striving mode and I function less out of serving the Lord and more out of a desire for self-glorification. Recently, the Lord reminded me of the scripture Psalm 46:8 which says, “Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth”. One could say that the opposite of striving is abiding – a word that expresses a relationship and posture instead of effort and action.
“I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, it is he who bears much fruit, from apart from me you can do nothing”. –John 15:5
Instead of feeing exhausted from the soul-crushing idol of perfection, the Lord invites me and all of us to simply “abide in [His] Love…” and “[my] joy will be full” (John 15:10-11). Instead of striving after my efforts, plans, and schedules, I get to partner with my limitless, powerful, loving Creator who made me to be WITH Him. And in order to simply be with Him more (both mind and spirit), the Holy Spirit convicted me of abandoning Instagram for this season. I desire to be like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus’ without distraction, even though it may feel counterproductive or difficult. I desire to abide in Jesus and fight the fight imperfectly – to be content with living the life Jesus designed me to live – free and wild and beautiful and simple.
SPECIAL CAVEAT
Even in writing this, I’ve had to push away perfectionist tendencies. This blog isn’t perfect. I feel it doesn’t accurately convey what the Lord has taught and is teaching me, and I could reword and rewrite this for a week, and this is a run-on sentence, but that would be beside what I feel like the Lord is pruning me in. So here it is, imperfect and messy. Just the way God made me.
“The snow is only meant, created, commanded to fall….You were only meant, created, commanded to be who you are, weird and wonderful, imperfect and messy and lovely.” –Shauna Niequist, Present Over Perfect
