We’re living in a time that could easily be labeled, “The Spirit of Perfection.” We live under a constant barrage of how “perfect” we are supposed to be or strive for. These “perfect” attacks begin in the New Year and culminate with the holidays. The New Year encourages us to make this year the best year of our life, because last year wasn’t? This perfect New Year can only be accomplished by revamping everything by the way. And the holidays? Well, in order to have the “perfect” holiday look no further than social media. Pinterest will tell us how to do it and our neighbor’s Facebook updates will show us how it’s done!
The Spirit of Perfection
I am totally preaching to my own choir of one here. I can feel myself slowly slipping into that “perfect” mindset. I read a book on Hygge and instead of appreciating the way my home invites my family to rest, I picked out all the ways I fail or will never achieve the perfect spirit of Hygge because I don’t light tons of candles and I drive to soccer practices most evenings instead of tucking myself and family in for the cold Winter evenings playing board games by the fire. Board games around the fire with my family is not my thing anyway. There, I said it.
Reading the latest, greatest “perfect” spiritual book about getting up early, early in the morning–4:30 in the morning, to spend quiet time with God will not make me perfect. Actually, it will likely make me a mean, gripey, grouchy, grumpy, impatient, sleep deprived wife and momma. If my goal was perfection and the enemy’s was discouragement…Enemy 1-Jenny 0.
How about making color-coded Pinterest worthy plans to read a set number of books this year? Sounds worthy…until I miss my “Book ‘A’ must be finished by this date” deadline. Then discouragement sets in and I start beating myself up mentally because I can’t even finish the very first book on my over exuberant and honestly, quite ridiculous one-year book list. I need to call that a running book list.
And don’t even get me started on the “perfect” planner. Although I believe I have finally found a planner and system that work for me…I’ve thought that before many times in the last two years. It’s not the planners, it’s me, totally and completely me. If I never saw another planner, I would be perfectly happy with the one I’m using right now. It works when I use it and doesn’t when I don’t. (The picture below is linked to the planner.)
What if this life I live, semi dictated by eight other people, just gets too busy to be “perfect?” What if I don’t finish the silly book by a certain date because I’ve been sitting on a soccer sideline or playing legos or painting at the dining room table? Or better yet, what if this book is speaking directly to my soul at this time and I need to read it in smaller chunks so I can properly digest the instruction. Did I really fail?
And what if my 1984 Ranch style home doesn’t have clean, white lines, multi-texture wall hangings or candles upon candles? What if it only contains a few vigil prayer candles pulled out and lit when the need is so great and pressing it requires a constant, consuming fire to remind me to pray? And what if instead of board games around the fire, we eat our family’s favorite and the yummiest popcorn (with coconut oil and nutritional yeast) in the front room watching College football or favorite musicals? Have I failed at the spirit of perfection? Or have I embraced my own? (I want a few of these so bad I can barely stand it!)
Maybe I don’t get up at 4:30am to spend quiet time with God. But I get up early enough to stretch to a Fitness Blender video with my teen girls and stay up late listening to the hearts of little souls with big concerns or messaging an online friend with words of encouragement digitally flowing back and forth between the two of us.
Years ago, in my quest for “perfect,” I made a very beautiful schedule. It had evenly spaced boxes and color-coded activities that fit neatly into set time slots, half-hour time slots if I remember correctly. I emailed a copy to my Spiritual Father who instructed me to share it with my husband to see if it would be a burden to him. Whoa…What? A burden to him? This was my schedule, my rule of daily life.
You see, right now and for many years to come, my perfection is completely intertwined with my duties as a wife, mother, homemaker, homeschool and soccer mom. My perfection is not directly related the number of hours I spend in solitary prayer. My perfection is not a direct result of this year spent Bible journaling. My perfection is not dependent on more of me…my plans, my desires, my dreams, and goals. My means of perfection is doing more of what God calls me to do…perfectly.
“Most people when they wish to reform, pay much more attention to filling their life with certain difficult and extraordinary actions, than to purifying their intention and opposing their natural inclination in the ordinary duties of their state. In this they often deceive themselves, for it would be much better to make less change in the actions and more in the dispositions of the soul which prompt them.”
—Practice of Christian and Religious Perfection
You know what the above quote says to me? Clean around the toilet with a cheerful heart. Sweep the floor for the umpteenth time with a smile on my lips. Pick up a lego piece with a joyful spirit. Hug a child, kiss a husband, listen to a friend with no other “perfect” agenda crowding that moment in time.
I am not saying I don’t make resolutions or BIG plans for the New Year. I am not saying I don’t click around the internet looking at ideas for the holidays. I am saying, I have to make those plans according to God’s plans for us. If God desires me to get up in the middle of the night to pray–most likely it will come in the form of a sick child. If God deems it necessary for me to spend long hours on my knees in prayer–most likely it will look like an opportunity to pray while mopping all the tile in my home on hands and knees. If God wants me to feed the hungry–it will probably first look like a group of growing children clamoring in the kitchen of my own home.
So ordinary in fact, I might miss it and most from the outside looking in will too.
Jenny. I don’t know how long ago you wrote this, but it is still very relevant. I struggled with perfectionism for years. It stopped me from taking chances, since I believed ” if you can’t do it right, then don’t do it at all” mindset. It also led me to judgement of others. There was always something wrong with me or something wrong with them. Funny how that works.
Now I see people as just being different or having different circumstances. Very simple. I , always, search for common ground, not dividing views. I learned all of this through the Bible. This world doesn’t teach us a whole lot of this but Jesus did. And so do children. They seem to have a beautiful way about them.
Beautiful comment. Yes, life–children and spending time in the Word have a way of softening the heart if we allow it.
Hmm…I keep trying the early rising resolution too…I usually get a terrible migraine as a consequence!
Oh no! Then our Lord wants you to sleep a bit more.
I tend to be a paralyzed perfectionist…. if it can’t be done perfect, why try? So I sit there, unchanging, regressing, becoming bitter because life isn’t what I wanted it to be…. and that is SO not what God wants. I did set some resolutions this year, and chose one word (love, which will be hard to live out…. but I’m up to the challenge). However, I did make my resolutions realistic and am trying not to get too legalistic. I love the quotes you shared… living the mundane, ordinary life…well, that’s where we are, right? Blessings to you and yours in this new year.
Thank you Lauren for taking the time to comment. Yes, that perfectionist streak that paralyzes! Ayyiyi! I almost thought “Love” was my one word, but I was led to “MORE.”
Jenny, this is so good. I think I could make this little list an entire “New Year’s Resolution” in itself: “Clean around the toilet with a cheerful heart. Sweep the floor for the umpteenth time with a smile on my lips. Pick up a lego piece with a light spirit. Hug a child, kiss a husband, listen to a friend with no other agenda crowding that moment in time.” With three little boys there is a LOT of toilet cleaning that needs to happen in my house. And it doesn’t feel brave or radical or spiritual or glamorous. But would God work on my heart, transform me into being more like Him a little bit if I do it with joy and thanksgiving? Absolutely. Thank you for your words today.
Becky, thank you for the comment. These words blessed me, “And it doesn’t feel brave or radical or spiritual or glamorous. But would God work on my heart, transform me into being more like Him a little bit if I do it with joy and thanksgiving? Absolutely. ”
I too have three boys and oh my gracious!
Love this! What really spoke to me was the end of your post where you describe the ways in which God leads us. I have seen this so many times is my life and yet it still took me many years to realize. Now I always try to see everything with open eyes and follow where I am led.
Yes, Michelle, that’s a good prayer isn’t it? “Lord, bless me with open eyes and allow me to follow where I am led.” Thank you for that.
Sounds as though God is telling you to “be present”…and I know that is enough!
Yes, Susan, to just enjoy the moment and allow Him to work with me or through me in that very moment.
Great post Jenny! I’m trying to get “caught up”; and it’s only the 9th of January! I so want to make 2015 the “perfect” year. I want to plan everything just so. The problem is I don’t even know where to begin. It’s overwhelming. But I know ultimately it’s all in God’s hands. Jesus, I trust in You!!!
BTW, Did I see you post about your goals for 2015? I thought I did, but I can’t find it. Can you help? Thanks and God Bless you!
Hi Debbi. I saw where you found the post. I actually need to do a weekly one or include it in my Daybook Online Journal; one month is just too long for me to go without a check-in. Reading those words the other was a huge light bulb for me. I too already feel behind and can’t believe I’ve already not done this, that or the other. The problem is I start too big and set myself up for failure.
So much truth in this post. I think we all need to give ourselves grace.
Yes Tara, grace. We would do well to extend the grace to ourselves we would so graciously offer to others.
You’ve hit the nail on the head and for those Type A, overachievers, this can become a real issue. Thank you so much for your post today — a wonderful reminder.
Thanks Jennifer Joy, yes us Type A girls could stand to loosen up a bit and let our Father lead us where He wants us to go.
Jenny, oh, I so can relate to this!! Your post is such a great reminder on the 9th of January, when many of us already feel like we have failed at our New Year’s resolutions. But we have not failed! We cannot expect of ourselves what God doesn’t expect of us. We cannot ask of ourselves more than what God asks. Of course we need to strive for holiness and perfection (in the right sense), but there is something about the effort we make, the times we pick ourselves up again, the leaning on God more than ourselves that is part of our quest for being better, being healthier, being closer to God. Good food for thought, Jenny, as I look at my 2015 goals. I naturally have that “all or nothing” mindset, and I am trying so hard to fight against it! I have not been perfect with my resolutions, but I’m not giving up either. More than anything, I am trying to be patient and persevering and in it for the long run.
“In your patience you shall possess your souls.” –Luke 21:19
Maybe we would all do well to post this verse in our planners and on our resolution lists.
I can remember clearly as a young girl when I would often say very enthusiastically to my mother, “I’m going to be perfect starting right now!” She would just say, “Okay.” Well, it only took minutes and there I was again, a wretched messer upper. I even tried to emulate a girl in school who I thought was perfect in every way. She was a christian, her clothes were super neat and so was her work. She never spoke an unkind word and her grades were top of the class. You should have seen her penmanship and her coloring with pencils! It’s not that they are not worthy things.
The problem is that I’ve always been grasping at the outward rather than inward ~ a neat room, perfectly ironed pants (no double creases and I would come home on my lunch break and touch them up). I was working from a deep sense of unworthiness.
Slowly, I am learning that yes, I am still a wretched sinner, but so long as I seek His will in the everyday, and know that He loves me anyway, life is much easier and true perfection much more attainable.
“For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made; for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.” Wisdom 11:24
Michelle, I think you’ve got the “wretched sinner” part down pretty good. I would love for you to start proclaiming yourself a “Beautiful, wonderful, child of God!”