Occasionally I find myself sighing and wishing I was more like my ideal me. Do you? This can be my mindset when I find myself acting on what I call Paul’s lament – doing what he doesn’t want to and not doing what he does want. Then after a few sighs I typically find myself wondering who that ideal person actually is and how they go about being ‘ideal’. Perfection, for me, does fall into the same category as ideal. Both.. not there yet. Somehow though, perfection is less troublesome than ideal. I think I feel that ideal should be the mindset (and visible?) and perfection is a process. Or does this thinking really fall into the same area as utopian thinking? And… if perfect and ideal are related, then maybe… just maybe I can apply the same mindset to being my ideal me.
It never is a wrong/right issue… it’s simply an issue. I don’t think that I’m ‘bad’, it’s just that I’m not ‘good’. This has been a somewhat bothersome (difficult) post to write. I have a great tendency toward wanting perfection in myself and this is never a good burden to place on ourselves. This means that I can get (read – daily) extremely irritated with myself when I don’t live up to this standard. And while it is simple (not necessarily easy) to grace others with this kindness of unperfection (yes it is a word, at least in my world), it is very, very difficult to apply it to self. The old ‘I should have known better’ or worse, ‘I knew better’ always rings in one’s ears and mind.
While it’s easy to know and realize the fact that perfection is a process, a goal that one presses on toward… less easy to apply. Each day becomes an opportunity and a challenge – a possibility but not a probability. So it just kind of hangs in midair. (I do believe this is turning into a vent post but I also believe I’m not the only one living in this predicament.)
And what do we need to do? This is easier to state than apply. What we need to do is grant ourselves a bit of grace.
Grace, in spiritual terms, means unmerited favor. That’s me. Daily I experience such grace extended toward me by the Lord. He goes further by providing me with scriptures (there are over 100 verses) that talk about being perfect, many of them written by Paul who was also afflicted with this issue. What you can easily take away from them is that ‘perfect’ and/or ‘ideal’ is definitely a process, something we need to have as a goal, but also never accomplished overnight or easily.
I also believe it can’t be rushed… that we can grow in this daily. It’s our gift to the Lord – becoming our best. Sometimes the problem really is… who’s doing the defining of ‘ideal’? If it’s us – never going to happen. If it’s the Lord, then He helps us because He says in John 15, AMP (read it in its entirety… I’m just emphasizing certain verses)
“Remain in Me, and I [will remain] in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself without remaining in the vine, neither can you [bear fruit, producing evidence of your faith] unless you remain in Me. (v.4)
I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for [otherwise] apart from Me [that is, cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing. (v. 5)
My Father is glorified and honored by this, when you bear much fruit, and prove yourselves to be My [true] disciples. (v. 8)
…remain in My love [and do not doubt My love for you].” (v. 9)
We have made Jesus our Lord. Perhaps we should also let Him do the defining of words. My part: remain in Him since apart I can do nothing. His part: everything else.
