Perfection…My Enemy

Francesca Battistelli has a song entitled Free to be Me in which a portion of the chorus says, “Perfection is my enemy.”  Oh how true it is that perfection is my enemy.  I convince myself that perfection is good.  Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men..”  So I have to do it all perfect, right?  I have to bend over backwards, stay up till midnight, make it spectacular.  Right?  I will settle for nothing less than perfection.  That is a positive right?  The problem?  I am fallible.  I am not perfect and so sometimes in my aspirations, in my goals, in my dreams, I don’t try because it won’t be perfect.

I find myself saying, “If I can’t do it right, I won’t do it at all.”  However that often means I won’t do anything at all.  So at the Judgement Seat when God is handing out rewards to His servants and He is telling them well done.  Am I going to be the one who has nothing to show for the years He has blessed me with?  Am I going to be the one who “…will be saved, but only as one escaping through flames”?  1Cor 3:15

God even tells us He uses us “earthen vessels” or as I one time heard “cracked pots” for a reason…2Cor 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure [Holy Spirit] in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God not from ourselves..”  Oh that I could learn the lesson that it is God in me, not me.  That it is about God and His glory not about my standard of perfection that I nearly kill myself to attain.  That I could see it is NOT my perfection, but Christ in me and that in the earthen vessel, my sinful, imperfect self that can really show God’s glory and power for what it is…I mean if God could use me, who can’t He use?

I started this post over a week ago and haven’t posted it because it wasn’t right.  Oh perfection, you hold me hostage and keep me doubting myself and thus in a way doubting God.  Father forgive my doubts, increase my faith.  Rid me of the me-centered life I cling to and fill me with a Christ-centered life.  Increase my faith and decrease my doubts.  Father I lay down my standards and pray that I may be filled with Your Spirit so I can live for You!