The Myth of Perfection

“Don’t be so hard on yourself!”

“You should give yourself some grace. Be kind to yourself.”

“Relax – it doesn’t need to be perfect.”

Do any of these statements sound familiar? Are you a recovering perfectionist too? I say “recovering” because I’m still a work in progress in this area. These things have been said to me on more than one occasion. Honestly, I’ve been wrestling for the past few weeks with not being “enough”. Striving to do my best – as a wife and mother, in household management, in writing, in relationships, in service and community, in homeschooling – all while my greatest efforts still fall short of reaching the ever elusive standard of success. It’s an endless cycle of straining to achieve, overwhelm, exhaustion, and discouragement and I had to ask myself this week, “Who sets the standard?”

I’m well acquainted with identifying failure – maybe you are too – but success? That seems to be a little harder to define or measure, a lofty goal that I can’t quite reach. So, when I read these words in the novel I picked up to unwind yesterday, they left me wondering, “Have I been measuring success with the wrong rubric?”

“There is no myth greater than that of perfection.”

Amanda Dykes – All The Lost Places

In my current season, God has been continually pulling my focus back to rest. And as I read those words, the Holy Spirit suddenly opened my eyes to my biggest roadblock to finding true rest: the myth of perfection.

He showed me that these are the equations for life that subconsciously underpin every action and decision I make. By definition, as an imperfect person in an imperfect world, I never attain success. No wonder I feel the way I do!

I’m often quick to criticize and castigate myself for missteps, capitalizing on my faults and all the ways I feel I haven’t measured up. Failure seems easier to identify than success. And sometimes we even pick apart our successes to find all the little flaws and imperfections, even though we’ve achieved our desired end result. But God’s Word never asked us to be perfect – at least not in the sense that we often understand it. The myth of perfection is that it’s attainable!

In Matthew 5:48, Jesus said that we were to be perfect, as our Father in Heaven is perfect. But before you get discouraged (like I did when I first read this passage), we need to understand what perfect actually means. In Greek, this word is “telios” meaning “complete (in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character)”. (Strongs – G5046)

Complete is a lot different than the definition for perfect that I’m familiar with: “being entirely without fault or defect: flawless”. But, I found something surprising when looking this up! The third definition listed is this: “faithfully reproducing the original”and it’s verb tense is “to bring to final form”.(Merriam Webster Dictionary)

Suddenly, this all made sense! In the Sermon on the Mount, where this command to be perfect is found, Jesus was highlighting how to faithfully reproduce the Original to the world around us: reflecting our Heavenly Father by walking in close relationship with Him. Learning from Him, thinking and speaking like Him, acting like Him.

God is focused on the “completion” process He is doing in us, not on our ability to be flawless. That’s His definition of perfection.

beatrice giesbrecht

Completeness doesn’t come by being flawless, because nothing and no one in this world is truly flawless. Even so-called “flawless” diamonds contain blemishes that are seen at higher magnification. So, when I hold myself to a standard of “flawless” – something that only Christ has ever or will ever be able to achieve – I will always feel that I am failing. But, if I can see perfection as the process by which God is bringing me to completion – the refining process in which I daily seek to become more like Him – then true the measure of success is how much I look like my Father.

This transformation is accomplished, not by how much I can achieve or how hard I work to attain perfection, but by how much I allow Him to do His work in me. Therein lies rest. There is restoration – the bringing us back to the plan and purpose God had for humanity in the beginning – made in His image and likeness. God-bearers to the world, following in Jesus’s footsteps and faithfully reproducing the Original. That kind of perfection is not a myth. That kind of perfection is infused with the hope that God is still at work.

Oh, breathe deep, friend, and rest! He hasn’t finished with us yet.