11.29.2006

the art of imperfection

cheryl hooked me up with a woman who sends out wonderful inspirational emails every week. today's "midweek thought" touched on something i have been thinking about alot: perfection and imperfection. she puts it succinctly:
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The sin, or error of perfection, is setting up and holding ourselves to, a human-based (imperfect) standard of what we perceive to be "perfect." Jesus instructed us to "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." This would mean to embody and express completely all of the divine attributes of God. It is our goal; it is the one thing we can truly take aim at. It is not about our human concept of perfect, which includes outer, temporal things like beauty, power, cleanliness, flavor, etc.

What does the "perfect" body look like? How tall? What color hair? Eyes? Weight? Measurement? What constitutes a perfect day, or life, or holiday? These things, in reality, are subjective and relative. Their "achievement" in the outer only leads to "vanity," which actually means "for nothing; useless, trivial and futile."

Consider the possibility you are already perfect in God's eyes. Even the challenges you face, whether physical, emotional, financial, etc. are a part of God's perfect plan to bring you to perfection as the image and likeness of God.

As we make peace with our perceived imperfection, and come to understand its true value, we will be able to improve our "aim," and find our mark more easily.

A greater sin than striving for a flawed, unrealistic standard of perfection for ourselves, is to hold others to OUR image of perfection. We must trust that God DOES have a plan, and that God DOES know what God is doing. As our Master Teacher said, "Judge not...and when you judge use righteous judgement."
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i see so many people killing themselves to attain their idea of "perfect." life is too short to subject yourself to constant judgment from yourself. believe me, i know how hard it is to suspend judgments, but if we could all be kinder to ourselves, the world would be a more peaceful place.

1 comment:

Tracey said...

Well I needed that. Had an issue with what's his name last night...you think it would go away. It doesn't. Thanks for sharing this Stacey. :)