I awoke recently with the opening lines of a poem surfacing into my waking thoughts. I had no memory of an accompanying dream, but the lines kept floating around until I sat down with them to see where they took me. In my spiritual formation journey, I have learned to pay attention to my inner longings and dreams. We know more at a subconscious level than we know at a conscious level.
I have come to recognize that my perfectionist personality stems from some longings that grew in me through my childhood experiences—to be right and good and avoid discipline. Those are not bad goals, but they are impossible to meet perfectly in our human limitations. So, a lifetime with a lot of frustration for me and others followed.
I never prayed to be perfect and did not realize I was striving for it to an inordinate degree. I just thought it was required of all of us. After all, there are scriptures that seem to call for it, such as: “Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48, NRSV). When lifted out of the bed of scripture, it sets an impossible goal. Even if it means to be complete and whole, human nature cannot achieve it fully.
The wonderful, good news is that we are made perfect in God’s sight through faith, as it was said of Abraham: “[He] believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Galatians 3:6, NRSV). We are made right with God through faith in the Love of God that brought us the gift of redemption through Jesus Christ.
The gift of righteousness that God gives is multi-dimensional and always in process—covenantal, personal, communal, relational, moral, ethical—and the outcome of faith in God’s Love as revealed in Christ. It is a higher attainment than we can reach, so God reaches it for us.
We need not only to be saved from our “sins,” but also from the power of “sin”—that power in us stemming from instincts and attitudes in our personalities that drive us to do and say things that mar relationships and muddy the river of our life. In short, we need to be transformed in our inner being, and that is the work and gift of the Holy Spirit. It is ours to receive and celebrate.
This poem is my celebration of God’s gift that makes us “right” in our relationship with God, even as He progressively loves us into being right with ourselves and one another.
I hope you enjoy the poem!
Perfect
Perfect was not my cry
But it is what Jesus gave.
He knew better than I
What my soul did crave.
I must earn it, was my thought,
Make it my own, not just pray.
Instead of trusting what He bought,
I was striving all the way.
Like a jewel hidden in plain sight,
It eluded my desperate eye.
I searched in the day as if it were night.
I missed the mark and swallowed the lie.
My greatest failure was not my sin.
It was missing the extent of His Love
And the Perfection He plants within
To fit me for His Kingdom above.
Perfectionism is striving to be
Right and correct in every way
Expecting others to tow the line
Criticizing and judging day by day.
While perfect is not ours to do
Lying beyond the reach of mortal aim.
It is the gift of love so true
When we give up the strain.
When we let Christ the Perfect One in,
He fills our soul with blessed light
And gives what we failed to win.
As Perfect Gift, He makes us right.
Through His loving Presence, He makes us whole.
All is forgiven that lies in the past.
He renews my mind and nurtures my soul.
My pursuit of perfect is over at last.
(written December 7, 2020)
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
