Perfectionism

 

“Perfection is an illusion. Yet perfectionists demand it from others while being far from flawless themselves.” Stewart Stafford 

For a myriad of reasons, mail delivery has been slow this year, especially during the Christmas rush. But I’m not aware of anyone losing their job over it. Apparently, we’re a little kinder on this side of the pond. 

  Royal Mail carrier, Robert Lockyer, wasn’t so fortunate. He was fired from his 28 year job after being just one minute late with a special delivery. The postal management accused him of “gross misconduct.” 

  Lockyer was making a special delivery at a bank. Special delivery items are guaranteed to arrive by 1 pm the following day (he’d already made around 1,500 of these in his career). Yet, because he was made to wait in line with other customers, it was 1:01 pm by the time he was able to obtain a signature to confirm the package was delivered. He was at the bank four minutes before the deadline but was a minute late getting the signature. 

  But it’s not just bureaucracy that’s perfectionistic. It’s everywhere, even in the Church. And perfectionists are miserable people. Worse, they’re miserable to live with. As someone observed, “a perfectionist is someone who takes great pains and gives them to others.” One Christian blogger asked followers for examples of perfectionism.  Here are a few of the responses:  

·      Doing all the household chores because that way they will be done right. Then feeling resentful because no one ever offers to help and here she is, doing all the work herself.

·       Reading Every. Single. Greeting card. To make sure they picked the perfect one.

·       Rearranging the dishes in the dishwasher to her standards.

·       Correcting details in your spouse’s stories.

·    Laying out your children’s clothes every day. Making their beds. Cleaning their rooms. Not letting them learn how to do anything for themselves because it won’t be perfect like you do it.

·    People who drive in the fastest lane and go exactly the speed limit, trying to control others’ behavior.

·        Staying up all night to clean for a party because someone might see one speck of dirt, or one thing out of place (as if someone is going to look in every corner of your house).

  Frequently, fear is the driving force for a perfectionist. “I am not okay and I’m going to be exposed as not okay.” But perfectionism and total control are illusions. This a sin-contaminated imperfect world and we’re part of it. 

  Are you a perfectionist? Do you feel like what you accomplish is never quite good enough? Do you often put off handing in papers or projects, waiting to get them just right? Do you feel you must give more than 100% on everything you do or else you will be mediocre or a failure? 

  Please understand perfectionism is not the same as the pursuit of excellence, though sometimes the lines can blur. Pursuing excellence is encouraged by Scripture (1 Cor. 10:31), perfectionism isn’t. When we pursue excellence, we’re determined to do something as well as possible within a given set of talent, resources, and time limits. On the other hand, perfectionism is a form of pride or fear-based compulsion that either fuels an obsession of doing something perfectly or paralyzes us from acting at all. Both often result in the harmful neglect of other necessary or good things. The bottom line is that being perfect is impossible. Worse, it hinders us from accepting grace. 

  Nowhere does the Bible encourage perfectionism. While Scripture promises us perfection, imputed perfection now ( 2 Cor. 5:21), and future perfection in eternity (Rev. 21:3-4), as a free gift of God’s grace, we won’t get close to perfection in any realm of our being on this side of eternity. 

  In fact, the Bible goes to great lengths to expose the imperfect, clay feet of the Bible’s faith heroes. Abraham, the father of the faithful, has his Hagar episode. Moses has his angry disqualifying rock incident. David, the man after God’s own heart, has a Bathsheba adultery and Uriah murder episode. Peter trips over his clay feet throughout the Gospels and beyond. 

  Page after page of God’s Word gives us a warts-and-all view into the very imperfect lives of the earliest Christians. God knows our perfectionistic temptations, and so He fills His Word with stories of His amazing and phenomenally patient grace toward sinners, who continued to imperfectly fight with and stumble in their own sin throughout their lives. He wants us to know that perfection is completely out of our experiential reach. And our gracious Heavenly Father has something far better for us to strive toward than our idealized imaginations of perfection, which only end up enslaving us and cause us to hurt those closest to us. 

  Perfectionism’s subtle, but sinful danger is self-orientation. Since it’s a fueled effort to win approval for the self, its primary focus is de facto on self, not God or others. Perfectionism, even in the battle against sin, is not motivated by love or faith (Rom. 14:23). 

  God wants us to be free from the tyranny of pride and fear. He wants us to live in the freedom of knowing that He has our past, present, and future perfection issues completely covered. They were all paid for at the cross. So, in our ongoing battles with sin, God isn’t looking for perfect, externally performed behavior or perfect, internally performed motivation from us. God is looking for love and faith, knowing full well both will be always be imperfect, no matter how much we grow in them. 

  It’s time to blow up the false image of perfection because in Jesus Christ, you’re free! You’re free to follow the Savior imperfectly. You’re free to fight the fight of faith defectively because that’s the only way you will ever fight for faith in this age. If you're a believer, you’re already as loved and as accepted as you will ever be. Relax and rest in His love. Enjoy Him, enjoy others, and enjoy life! It’s time to focus on living out a childlike, dependent faith through authentic acts of love. It’s time to be free and live in His grace!

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