I Don’t Need You to Be Perfect; I Just Need You

Today’s show title comes from a statement Cinthia found herself making to her husband when he lamented having accidentally dropped a suitcase on her foot while trying to accomplish a project perfectly.  She recognized the statement to be much like what God says to those of us who struggle with perfectionism: He is perfect.  He wants us.  Any perfection we pursue that doesn’t come from Him will only deceive us.

Sometimes we think of perfectionism as a noble weakness, one we can describe with false self-deprecation when asked to identify our limitations in a job interview.  As Christians, we may even think of our perfectionism as spiritually positive, citing verses such as, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father as perfect” (Matthew 5:48, ESV).  But perfectionism does not lead us to the kind of holiness God desires for us because our perfectionism is not about God; it’s about us.  It’s our own pursuit of being enough, hiding from the shame that threatens us, making ourselves superior to what we fear we could become.  It may mimic the pursuit of what comes from heaven, but perfectionism is, as Cinthia says today, actually very sinful and “straight from the pit of hell.”  If this sounds shocking, hang in there --- It actually gets pretty freeing.  But that freedom comes with dying to perfectionism.

Perfectionism is egregious to God because only He is perfect.  When we who do not even know what perfection is try to accomplish it in ourselves, it brings death.  God made us, and He said that what He made was very good.  But God’s enemy, the enemy of our souls – Satan – wanted to be like God.  He wanted to exalt himself to perfection out of pride, and he tempts us to do the same.  He tempted Eve with the same prospect – that of becoming like God – and when she believed the fruit would lead her to this, the human race ironically lost the perfection with which it had been made.  We have been trying to get it back ever since then, trying to do for ourselves what only the blood of Jesus can accomplish. 

So what is the difference between pursuing excellence, which is a good thing, and perfectionism?  Well, to start, perfectionism has trouble distinguishing when perfection matters and when it does not.  If a doctor is performing an operation on another human being, that doctor should try to do it perfectly (though, of course, human limitations will still exist).  But perfectionists often feel driven to be (or require others to be) perfect in less-crucial areas of life.  Perfectionists can spend wildly disproportionate amounts of time, energy, and other resources trying to achieve perfection in things that really do not warrant that level of devotion, and sometimes even on what is trivial. 

Here are some other differences between perfectionism and the pursuit of excellence:

-Pursuing excellence involves setting challenging but achievable goals and feeling satisfied when they are achieved.  Perfectionism involves setting impossible goals and feeling crushed when they are not achieved. 

-Those who pursue excellence may feel disappointment when they make mistakes, but perfectionists tend to become consumed with their mistakes.

-The pursuit of excellence is motivated by the potential for success and happiness, but perfectionism is motivated by fear of failure, rejection, or criticism; perfectionists can be very susceptible to these things and can spend their whole lives trying to outrun them.

-The pursuit of excellence allows for satisfaction in having worked hard and accepting some results as being “good enough,” but perfection operates in extremes (e.g., success vs. failure) and leads to exhaustion and an inability to appreciate what God is doing in the moment.  Perfectionism operates in the realm of ego and self-esteem, constantly holding out the fear, “I’m never going to make it,” which turns out to be true.

The cost of perfectionism is high.  Perfectionism can lead us to have difficulty making decisions, to stop trying because we fear failing, and to constantly second-guess ourselves and regret our decisions.  It undermines our opportunities to learn because learning is not perfection.  It requires constant striving, which leads to exhaustion, and that leads to inaccurate self-perception.  Perfectionism contributes to procrastination from lack of confidence and a tendency to make things bigger than they are, as well as stress, anxiety, and depression.

Perfectionism is a personality trait that can be caused by both environmental factors (e.g., overly critical parents) and biological factors (e.g., genetics).  But perfectionism can be changed, and it should be.  Remember, if our intentions were to adore God’s perfection and follow Him as He re-creates it in us, He would love that.  But perfectionism does not lead us to seek God; it can even lead us to avoid Him or see Him as being perfectionistic like we are instead of truly perfect as He is.  Perfectionism causes us to seek and be obsessed with our own ideas of perfection, and these are warped, fallen. While true perfection is found only in God, the One Who knows about our imperfections and Who alone can help us, perfectionism comes from the enemy. 

Perfectionism does not align us with what God is doing, and the obsession it creates with self-blame aligns us, instead, with our enemy.  We need to know who our real enemy: Satan is a liar, and he is brilliant.  Satan fell because he wanted to be like God (Isaiah 14:12-17), and he hates everything that can be more of what God wants.  He is our enemy because He is God’s enemy.  John 8:44 tells us that Satan is a liar and the father of lies, and that, when he lies, he speaks out of his own character.  He was “a murderer from the beginning.”  I Peter 5:8 describes him as our “adversary the devil” who “prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.”  Jesus called Satan “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; John 16:11), and II Corinthians 4:4 calls him “the god of this world.”  During the episode Cinthia cites an article called “Satan’s Ten Strategies Against You” which states that it is Satan’s aim to use both pain and pleasure to blind and deceive us.  He masquerades in costumes of light and righteousness.  He is very beguiling.  He loves to represent good as evil and evil as good. 

With all of this, though, God is sovereign over Satan.  Satan is on a leash.  In Job he is described as having to get God’s permission to attack Job (Job 1&2), and he had to ask to “sift” Peter like wheat (Luke 22:31).  Revelation 20:10 speaks of the judgment God will execute on Satan, the deceiver. 

God intends our lives on earth to be a “good fight” against hell by those of us who refuse to be a part of Satan’s dominion, but you cannot fight Satan with your own perfectionism.  It plays right into his strategies.  Instead, you have to get serious about not condemning yourself.  Your adversary is way bigger than you are, and you can only fight him by the blood of Jesus.  Your sins are God’s problem, and He has already accomplished your redemption and forgiveness through the blood of Jesus.  He will help you through the consequences that occur on earth as a result of your sin, not harm you.  James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  Revelation 12:11 describes those who will “have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”

So what does our fight look like?  Sometimes it looks like stopping yourself in the midst of a struggle and asking, “Is this a fight that God has asked me to be in?  Is he putting me in a position to fight with the enemy on this one?”  If it is, He will provide you with a way out.  But if you are trying to fight against Satan in your own strength, the results will not be good. 

“Perfectionism,” says Cinthia, “is truly straight from the pit of hell.”  One of the things Satan wants more than anything is for you to think you can be like God.  Remind yourself of this.  Go back to Isaiah 14:12-17.  Humility is not about being humiliated but about knowing yourself realistically.  God says you can overcome because of Him, not in your own strength.  He wants us to overcome because He loves us.  If you are in Him, God has already reconciled Himself to you.  He is not going to abandon you, no matter how He feels about your choices. 

Perfectionism has so much to do with how you run your life and how much you enjoy it.  You think we will arrive and relax, but it never happens.  This is because, as God once told Cinthia, “You don’t even know what perfect looks like.”  We cannot aspire to be God when He is the One Who created us.  We cannot create except with what He has made.  We can mess ourselves up but cannot make ourselves.  Self-forgiveness is key.  The enemy of your soul is constantly showing you what you did wrong, and no one likes shocking themselves.  You must get over yourself as an act of warfare against Satan.  Don’t waste your time and energy covering it up.  Luke 8:17 indicates that secrets will not remain secrets forever.  Allow yourself to learn from your mistakes.  Stop aspiring to your own perfection, and seek the Perfect One.  He is the One Who “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Eph. 3:20).  Jesus says in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  Satan does not want you to have an abundant life.  We have a hard time grasping abundance, and it looks different in each of our lives.  Jesus’s life was abundant without the things with which we associate it. 

Cinthia recalls thinking her perfectionism would protect her from pain, but it was killing her.  In her book God Wants You Truly Living (Not Walking Dead), Cinthia wrote that it is hard for us to comprehend that perfectionism is not where happiness lies.  But, after typing a sentence about that, she noticed those two words sitting next to each other: “happiness lies.”  God knows we can’t achieve happiness by chasing it.  Read Ecclesiastes.  Jesus was free.  He had a deep, meaningful relationship with the Father.  He got His value there.  He had meaning and purpose and did not compare Himself to others.  He had a clear conscience.  He had deep, meaningful relationships with others even though those others were imperfect.  He lived the abundant life without the kinds of success we think we must have.  Jesus was willing to die for others in obedience to His Father, God.  He calls all of us to die to something, often to things we think we need but that are actually choking the life out of us.  Are you willing to die to whatever God wants you to die to in order to be free? Abundance is more than enough but never excessive.  He has so much in mind for us.  He went first.  He is the Way.  We have to follow Him in death to whatever He calls us to let die.  And sometimes that thing is perfectionism.  Sometimes our perfectionism has to die in order for us to live.  See Philippians 3:10.  What kind of life is going to be pleasing to God?  How can you help the people He loves?  It’s not about being perfect.  It’s about pursuing the Perfect One and the purpose for which He made you.