The Thief of Our Energies...

You’re excited!

A brilliant new idea, some creative light bulb has just sparked a surge of energy and you set to work.

You eagerly go about making your mental masterpiece become a reality. Pen out the words, sketch the scene, thread the needle, mix the ingredients, snap the shot, build the structure, play the notes.

Only wait….

Something isn’t right.

You try again.

Nope.

It still doesn’t sing to you.

Maybe if you just…

Grrrrr! THAT isn’t going to work.

Before long…

Scratch that!

I’m done, I give up.

It’s not PERFECT!!!

Do you ever feel like that? To be so exuberant and excited about something new, only to abandon it in utter frustration because you can’t make it turn out the way you had envisioned in your head?

Well I do that a lot. Especially recently.

My life isn’t perfect.

FAAARRRRR from it in fact. Sometimes I wish there was a restart button. I want a do-over, like in those wonderful old Nintendo games, you know? If you missed a coin in your quest for the ultimate score, or didn’t beat the clock, you got to restart and attempt your perfect run once again. Man, do I wish life was like that!

Is it just me or does it seem the more your life is imperfect, the more we seem to strive for perfection in the little things?

Take this blog for instance. Since its creation I have been frustrated with it…it doesn’t look the way I want it to, I can’t make the design do what I want, it’s not as impressive as so and so’s…and I get discouraged. What was first a source of excitement and creative energy fast became an annoyance and had me throwing hands in the air in surrender to my frustrations.

But then I stop and think.

My quest for perfection is keeping me from the real purpose of this blog….to write!

Perfectionism is a thief to your energy.

Rather than devoting my energies and precious time to writing for this blog, I found myself obsessing about the color of the texts, the width of the margins, the placement of boxes! When it comes down to it, who really cares?

I was allowing my time and my joy to be stolen by a drive to be perfect.

But you know….I never will. At least not in this life.

That’s when I hear the whisper…  “I am your perfection…I became perfection for you.”

2 Samuel 22:31- As for God his way is perfect…”

Hmmm, “the way”, now doesn’t that sound familiar?

John 14:6 “Jesus answered, “ I am the way and the truth and the life.’”

Life. When you think of a perfectionist, do you think of life…full, joyful, overflowing life? Hmmm, nope, sorry, those two don’t seem to mesh in my mind.

The definition of perfect is “without defect or blemish.” Wait, I’ve heard that one before too.

1 Peter 1:18-19 “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

Christ became what we could never be…perfect. That is why we have a Savior.

Mmmm, breathe that in…you don’t have to be perfect because He has become your perfection!

But just a second, there is another verse…Matthew 5:48  which says “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Wait!    

Didn’t I just say we don’t have to be perfect, and here I bring up this verse?!

Think of it this way. What is perfect?  “Without blemish” right? That means holy…clean…pure…like.. Jesus.

Just be like Jesus.

Just walk in His way…The Perfect Way…The Life…The Truth…the truth that sets us free. The truth is we aren’t perfect. The truth is…HE IS.

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You.”- Isaiah 26:3.

Peace. Not frustration. Now that IS perfect.