I’m a little afraid of what you might think. I’m afraid you won’t like my hair or the way I dress or the fact that I sometimes snort when I laugh. What if you don’t like my words or the way I express myself? I’m afraid you won’t like the way I can sometimes be sassy and blunt and sarcastic.
Actually, I’m a lot afraid, or at least I was until God showed up and revealed that your opinions were more important to me than his. I’ve been trying to live up to perfect and I’ve found that perfection is a hard task master whom I can never ever please.
So. Perfection? I’m breaking up with you.
Perfection, you’ve used my fear of rejection to sway me into a relationship with you. It’s impossible to please you, and my heart has been twisted until it has little resemblance to my truest self. I keep breaking up with you because ours is a toxic relationship, but we get back together because you woo me with flattery and deceive me into thinking that you are the reason I’m accepted. You use my fear of rejection against me, but perfection? I have a message for you:
Being perfect cripples and shames because perfection is impossible to attain and shame’s cousin is fear, which pulls me in tight and won’t let me go.
So I raise the white flag of surrender, not to my fears, but to my God. I bring my fears and shame to him and lay it at His feet because fear and shame keep me from receiving and being perfected in His love.
His perfect love means He is the one I fear, He is the one I please, and He is the one who holds me close when my world falls apart. So perfection? You and I are breaking up for good because His love is the key to overcoming my fear, not a relationship with you. Sincerely, me.
Breaking up with a habit, attitude or train of thought requires diligence in order not to re-form an alliance with that thing that holds us back from moving forward in our relationship with God. The ‘thing’ that cripples and stunts our growth is going to be different for each of us. It could be: jealously, religion, an inaccurate view of God, negative thinking or a lack of thanksgiving, but what if we stopped the crazy cycle and embraced the crazy, unfathomable love God has for us as individuals where our fears are gone and our perfection has nothing to do with us, but everything to do with his love. What if we let his love drive out our fears and submit to being perfected in his love?
Being perfected in His love is coming to a fuller, richer, and greater understanding of his love for us. Perfection is this: to live so securely in His love that the crap of life doesn’t change our security in his love.
I’ve broken up with perfection and in its place is a brokenness which only God can fill, but it’s through the brokenness that I come to a fuller realization of this amazing grace that flows down and in and around and through me so that I only breathe in His love and breathe out His grace onto my brokenness and onto yours.
We’re all a broken mess and it’s only through God’s grace that we can break up with the toxic behaviors in our lives and be filled with his spirit so that we can run in the freedom he sets before us.
A freedom to live securely in his love.
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 (NIV)
“I hold fast to your statutes, O Lord; do not let me be put to shame. I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:31-32 (NIV)
James 1:2-4 ‘Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything.’
So often I want to be mature and complete in my walk with Christ without wanting the trials and perseverance, but these verses clearly lay out the path to maturity:
Trials.
Test Faith.
Perseverance.
Maturity
Completeness.
What if we were to look at every trial that comes along through the lens of this verse? Trials are stepping stones to maturity and completeness. Who doesn’t want maturity—wouldn’t it be wonderful if all believers were mature immediately after salvation? Wouldn’t it be amazing if the body of Christ—the church was complete and not lacking anything?
Society would be affected for the good. Jesus would be represented well. God would be known.
But these verses and others like them indicate that maybe, just maybe trials are for our benefit. Faith is tested, and as our faith is tested we get to practice a little muscle called perseverance.
I’m not so sure I like that word: perseverance. I mean it sounds super noble and all that, but it also sounds a little vague, like trying to catch a cloud. Honestly, when I am in the middle of ‘persevering’ it usually feels messy and lonely and a little bit desert-y. Just what is perseverance? Is it facing down our trials with grit and determination? It’s actually a steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or a delay in achieving something.
How do we reconcile trials as joy and being plucked from the net and mirey clay the Psalmist talks about? Could it be more of a heart condition rather than our physical condition?
I am a sunny optimist with a heavy dose of realism as well. I know that life can be rough. I know that people disappoint and I know that we make choices every day to further our relationship with Christ or not.
I think we have to get to a point where God is bigger than our life junk. We need to ask for the eyes of our hearts to be opened and aware of the bigger picture and when we can’t see the bigger picture for the haze and fog, then we must trust God because we are confident he has our good in mind.
I certainly don’t go out and seek trials and stand with excited anticipation for the next opportunity to exercise perseverance and I don’t think you do either, but I think we can stand with bated breath waiting for our God to show up and blow us away with how he moves in us during our trials.
Trials can break us and it’s in our breaking that we can experience an overflow of amazing grace into our lives. You see, brokenness isn’t necessarily something we should shy away from because sometimes its in the brokenness that we find the best kind of grace.
The brokenness that Christ suffered brought us immeasurable grace and his subsequent triumph over death ensures that we will triumph, but we must submit. We must submit to his lordship in our heart and run in his ways and walk in his precepts even if they take us through fire.
He has your back. He stands waiting for you to run to him. He will be your strength. He will cause you to soar on the wind.
I pray that you will begin the journey of knowing God more and that he will reveal himself to you and he will open your eyes and your heart would be filled with the gift of faith, which he fans into a steady flame.
The most powerful weapon in the world is at our fingertips. It has the power to destroy or to build up. It’s also the most volatile weapon because it is so uncontainable. What is this weapon?
If we’re not careful our days and years can vanish like dandelion fuzz, and we wonder what we have to show for it. We experience seasons of flourishing and seasons of dormancy and each gives us the same opportunity: to grow in wisdom.
I have learned that I need to be willing to be reflective in the varying seasons and filter every lesson through the lens of God’s word in order to grow in wisdom. A season I have been in for quite a while is home educating our four children. I’m in the double digits now and I definitely know I haven’t got it all figured out, but there have been some lessons I’ve learned along the way that have served me well and made me a better wife, mom, and teacher.
This article is my top five tips for the homeschooling mama, but really? I think they’re applicable to almost any areas in life. I hope you will be blessed by it and see how these five tips can apply to your life as you experience your varied seasons of life.
I appreciate you reading this fledgling little space called Welcome Grace. It means the world to me to know that you use some of your most precious commodity–time–here in this space. Thank-you seems so inadequate so I am going to say instead, ‘You make my heart glad.’
I’ve been thinking about you, dear friend and wondering how you are and where you are in your journey with God. Are you skipping along the path, gathering your arms full of tulips and lilacs and few sprigs of grass? Possibly you are in a place of peace and beside still waters and being called to resume your journey.
Maybe you are wandering in the desert, parched and faint and ready to give up or staring at the crossing of a dangerous river and you question you will make it safely to the other side. Could you be facing a treacherous descent after a beautiful view from the summit of a mountaintop?
Unique journeys. Difficult travels. Questionable weather. Sometimes we experience everything at once and other times it’s spread out over time.
But this I know–no matter what you or I may face — God is worthy of deep, deep trust.
May I pray for you today?
Holy God,
You are God and I am not. You are for us…remind us of this truth. You are faithful every step of the way and we open our hearts a little more to trusting you in the darkness. In you there is no darkness so we hide ourselves in your l light and rest and wait in you. Like a weaned child with his mother, we rest contentedly on your lap, trusting you to meet our needs in your time and your way.
Pour your spirit out on the one reading these words and may they know you are with them. May they become aware of your presence and stand in awe of you. Whisper love to their hearts. Sweep them away by the power of your goodness. Let them find comfort in your justice. Be bigger than their circumstances in their eyes. Magnify yourself, God in their life.
God, that you would fulfill your purpose and we would faithfully keep walking towards you. You have conquered all and we give you our vanquished hearts.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
It is a privilege to pray for you and a privilege to trust God with you for what he’s doing in your life. May you rest in the trustworthiness of God’s character as you face today’s challenge.
