Hey y’all!
It’s been awhile since I posted a blog post, and with training camp coming up– like, NEXT WEEK– I wanted to update y’all on what God has been teaching me and what He has put on my heart.
For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with the idea of perfection and this sense of ‘control’ over my life. When I was in middle school, I was clinically diagnosed with depression and anxiety; my therapist at the time used a term to describe me and my behaviors, she called it perfectionism. According to the dictionary, perfectionism is “the refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.” As I struggled most of my life with this idea, the question kept coming up in my conversations with God about what ‘perfect’ even is.
Is it something that I can attain? Is it something that I can reach? Will I ever be perfect?
The short answer is no. No, we cannot be perfect on our own.
This idea that I could never be perfect or fully in ‘control’ of my life often haunted me and left me feeling anxious or defeated. I wanted things to work out my way on my terms and conditions. But God says otherwise.
In Luke 9, Jesus is telling his disciples and all who listens to him that, “If anyone would come after me (Jesus), let him deny himself and take up his cross DAILY and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit it a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (v. 23-25)
God is telling us (me and you, his people) that we have to deny ourselves and take up Jesus’ cross daily to follow him. We need to lay down our old selves at the cross and leave them in the grave Jesus overcame, so we can have life. Not just the life like we are living now, but eternal life with God. The life where we get to see his kingdom and get to be a part of it, and for so long that is all I desired.
I desired to be a part of God’s kingdom, but I did not want to hand over my old life and old ways to follow Him because I was scared to not be in control. My pride got in the way of my relationship with Jesus, and I kept telling him and myself that I was not worthy of God’s grace.
I did not feel worthy of his grace, but I kept praying to feel his grace and to see his love for me.
Then IT RAINED DOWN GRACE!
I was able to see and know Jesus in a new way; I finally saw him as the loving and living sacrifice he is. I was reading Hebrews 12 when it really hit me.
“Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings us so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder of perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (v. 1-2)
“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (v. 4).
I read Hebrews 12 for the first time realizing the extent to what Jesus went through for me and you. He shed is his own blood, and I never had to. I never had to sacrifice myself or shed my own blood for my redemption… Jesus did. He is in control. Jesus is perfect.
And God calls us to lay aside our sins and weights that chain us down to follow Him for the joy and fellowship of being with Him.
When I saw that God favored me and showed me grace, I realized that when he looked at me, He saw Jesus. Jesus is perfection. And when God saw me, he saw the perfection in Jesus.
I no longer felt the crippling anxiety of defeat that I felt before when trying to be perfect because I realized my identity in Christ. I realized that I had a relationship with the living sacrifice who gives me life. Through all of my brokenness, I was able to be made whole. I was made in whole in Christ Jesus.
AMEN!!!
