Perfection - Part 3

The Impossibility of Perfection

I ended my last post by suggesting that Jesus ethic of perfection, as found in Matthew 5:48, is not practically applicable, certainly whilst on this earth. If the answer to the question, 'how perfect is perfect?' is 'Jesus', then I think the Bible quite clearly shows us it is a standard we will never reach. In fact, if I think back through the life of Jesus, it is absolutely incredible how He lived His life, and how He died His death. We don't know all the details of every day of His life, but we know that when He was tried (unfairly) and murdered (unjustly) He didn't complain. He didn't fight back. He was hurting - physically, emotionally and spiritually (think of that anguished cry - My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?), yet he took it all upon Himself. He saw it through - He did God's will in spite of what that required of Him. How can I even begin to think about trying to reflect that sort of perfection?

So if it is impossible to achieve this perfection on earth, why does Jesus ask us to? Is it about trying to even though we know we wont fully achieve it. Is it about always steadily trying to become more and more holy (perfect) as we live our lives? Is this part of our purpose? To become holy, or at least, as holy as we can before we leave this earth?

The Case for Imperfection

I have been part of the evangelism cluster group at my church for a while now and I have found myself increasingly wondering why it is that people would refuse to enter a church. I have found that there are numerous reasons, and though it may not be the most common reason, I have certainly heard it said that people sometimes look into a church and think they could never belong. Why? because apparently everyone in church is sorted. Now those of us within the church would certainly know that is not true - but do we sometimes give that perception?

Thinking about that made me think about what people would think of me upon looking into my church. I am quite involved in my church. I lead a cell group, I am part of the songsters (senior choir), I am a salvation army soldier and I wear a uniform, I am part of the evangelism cluster and the worship band. I think anyone who really knows me knows that I am in no way 'sorted'. Very very far from it, particularly right now, so I would hate to think that anyone would look at me, and think to themselves that they could never be that 'sorted' and so would never belong.

This makes the case for not being afraid to show, or at least admit our imperfections. Are we too British? Do we try to keep our 'business' to ourselves too much? The truth is, I don't really know what to think. I was recently told by a non-Christian that my faith was obviously not working for me bearing in mind some of the things I am dealing with right now. If I hadn't have told this person about some of my failures and rubishness, they may still be under the illusion that my faith is 'working', but then I would be in danger of falling into the trap of making Chrisitanity - or church - look un-approachable.

I think its always the right thing to do to be honest, but at the same time, does that necessarily have to mean telling everyone everything about your life? If you are grumpy one day, should we hide it and pretend we aren't and that we are full of the joy of the Lord? (especially if we are helping to lead worship - I do sometimes have this problem being in the worship band!)

It seems whatever you do it is wrong - either you are sharing too much and therefore being unhelpful to other people in their worship, their experience of faith (or indeed their introduction to faith), or you are not sharing emough and making people think that Chrisitans have no problems and are therefore completely unapproachable.

Writing this has helped me to think about it a little, and I think I may have reached a few of my own conclusions:

1. Being honest doesn't have to mean telling everyone everything - it means telling the truth when asked. Pretending to be someone you are not isn't the same thing as not telling EVERYONE EVERYTHING about who you are. (True or not?)
2. Those people who think that Christianity is something they couldn't look into because they aren't perfect enough, are bound to meet a Christian in their lives. Hopefully, this Christian in their life would be someone who was close enough to them, and honest enough to show them that that is not true. If that is their perception, it must be because they have never had an honest, deep, one-to-one with a person who has experienced the grace of God in their life.
3. Maybe sometimes, trying so hard to be perfect, or trying to be honest about our own imperfections, however genuine the motive, is actually being too focused on ourselves. If I try instead to focus on God and on others - to think of myself less, I will worry less about what perception I am giving off; less about what other people might be thinking of me, and more about them and God.

In all honesty, I wonder if number 3, in essence, is part of the process of becoming more holy. I don't think I will ever achieve number 3 whilst here on this earth. But I can certainly make an attempt. So maybe attempting to become holy is not about me - but is about how much I think about God and others?

Perfection - Part 2

Does God Expect Perfection?

Its interesting actually that the comments to the previous post follow the same train of thought I have been on. I want to start this post with the passage of scripture that first inspired it:

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48

For my Christian Theology A level I had a piece of coursework based on this passage which asked whether Jesus' ethic of perfection fails the test of practical application. I need to try to dig this essay back out again to find out what I thought back then. Now, having a bit more of an understanding of myself and who I am, I have been really trying to work out how there can be any common ground between passages such as this, and the advice that people often give me reminding me that aiming for perfection will always lead to disappointment.

I remember that one of my conclusions was that perfection will never be reached while we remain on earth, but that should not stop us from keeping that aim as a backdrop to all we do in life. However, I now know that the desire for perfection can seriously be damaging to your self esteem and so it seems that passages such as the above should be considered carefully before staking your life on it.

Both of the comments made I have considered too. Could this mean 'be the best you can be' rather than 'be perfect'. The problem I have with that is that it is not what the scripture says, and also, who is to say what 'the best I can be' is? How can I or anyone else say whether I have reached that goal or not? I do agree that we need to define what Jesus might mean by perfection. I tend to think that perfection means being the best at everything, and always doing the right thing. But if to fulfil the above scripture I have to be good at art, or dancing, or directions, then I might as well give up now!

I like the idea of comparing today's (or at least my own) idea of perfection with holiness. Surely that is what Jesus is talking about; living totally surrendered to God's will and being pure and righteous, not being good at art! I read up on it a little bit and found the following quote:

"God’s perfection means that God completely possesses all excellent qualities and lacks no part of any qualities that would be desirable for him." Wayne Grudem

This brings us right back to Dawns comment about us being as perfect as we are meant to be. I guess that my concern about how to define what perfection means for me can be answered simply by 'look at Jesus'. Surely the answer to the whole question of what perfection means is 'look at Jesus'.

So, does this fail the test of practical application? Actually yes, it does. But more about that in the next post! I know! You can't wait right?!?!?!

Perfection - Part 1

Before writing this post I want to acknowledge two things:

1. Its been ages since I updated my blog. I have neither posted any new thoughts, nor updated my 'friends wot blog' list. Glyn was most upset about this after his astounding success of blogging every day not too long ago, and so because of that, Glyn is now at the top of my list. I will endeavour to update this properly in January.
2. The lack of recent posting means that this topic (perfection) could turn out to be be very long. My posts are always long anyway, let alone when I haven't blogged for a while; so to try to not bore everyone to death, I have decided to split this up into (at least) three blog entries. This one will talk about 'me and perfection' (not that I think the two belong together), the next will talk about whether God expects perfection, and the last will talk about the perfection to come.

Me and Perfection

I overheard a conversation the other day where someone said, 'its not about perfection is it!'. This comment was made in relation to a carol service for the community put on by our church. I, somewhat facetiously, said, 'oh yes it is, perfection is everything'. Actually, in all honesty, I probably didn't say that, I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was certainly a comment suggesting that we should always aim for perfection.

I DID mean that tongue-in-cheek. I don't really think that a church carol service has to be perfect - I was genuinely joking. However, it did raise the point that I do have a bit of a perfectionist streak in me. I think I have mentioned on here before that I hate being called, or especially calling myself, a 'perfectionist'. If I was asked to imagine what a 'perfectionist' was like, I would immediately think of someone who was nearly perfect, and hated that they weren't quite there. That is the image conjured up in my mind when people call me that, and yet I am so far from that. I don't in any way think of myself as anywhere near perfect. I am not a perectionist because everything I do is always perfect, but because I HATE that it isn't. I know it may seem trivial to make this distinction, but it is really important for my understanding of who I am.

WHy do I say all this? The next couple of posts will say more about this, but the point is largely this: I think being a 'perfectionist' can cause all sorts of problems, and I am often being reminded that no-body expects me to be perfect, but I really struggle with the idea of not striving for that. I do want to be perfect, and I am not sure that I agree that I should start to tell myself its ok to be less than that. Not that I think I am, or ever will be, anywhere near reaching that goal, but surely its not wrong to strive for it anyway; to strive to be the best we can rather than excusing ourselves for being less than that and therefore never reaching our potential?

Like I said, I will expand on this thought in a more spiritual context in the next post. I guess this might come across as defensive, but I don't mean it in that way; these are genuine ponderings of mine, and I am not trying to make statements, of right or wrong, merely trying to work out my own issues in this area.

Old Post 2 - Chance or Not?

Ok, second in my series of old-post re-visits. You can see the original here or you can read the context below:

The original post was basically asking the question, "how much of what 'happens' in the world is attributable to God - does chance exist? If not then how can we make sense of some of the things that happen in the world?"

The comments I received were extremely helpful. They pointed me to Job to see that God was sovereign in that situation. He had ultimate control. He didn't do those horrible things to Job, that was Satan, but God was in control of it.

I also made the following comment in my blog,

"I am toying with the thought that maybe, just maybe, this is supposed to be a bit ambiguous. Maybe we are supposed to not really know exactly how much control God chooses to exert over the world in which we live. Would us knowing actually make any difference to the way we live? Surely, even if God does leave some things to chance, we can still pray about it, and trust that God knows which situations to take control of and which not to? It would help to know, (and maybe some people think that they do know the answer to this - maybe I am just a bit thick!), but I guess that its part of our responsibility to just trust despite the fact that things seems confusing. Its a case of choosing to trust despite the ambiguity"

My current thoughts about all this are that chance does not exist, in the sense that God ultimately does have control over everything. However, the reasons why He allows some things to happen, the reasons why he chooses to heal one person and not another, the reasons why He can let someone die without them being saved and so on and so on......... are still a bit ambiguous. Most people will know that I HATE Christian cliches. You all probably know as well as I do that the answer to why God chooses the things he does allow or not allow are 'always for our own good' or 'will strengthen us' or are 'because we have free will'. The reason why one person gets an answer to their prayer while the other one is waiting and waiting and waiting, is often answered with - 'God answers all prayers sometimes He says no or wait'. That makes me cross though, because it leaves out the way if makes people feel. It's putting a reasoned out conclusion to a person who is often severely hurting, and just wants to be able to cry and be cross about it. I think my final conclusion to this is that I would agree with my own statement - "Its a case of choosing to trust despite the ambiguity". Not necessarily trying to answer the 'why' question because that will almost always leave you unsatisfied, but instead choosing to cry, scream, shout, and then finally, to simply trust. Hard, but probably true! Interestingly, I believe this is what you people have been telling me all along! Ha ha!

What were you doing when...

Thanks Dawn for tagging me on this one!

Five events and the opportunity to record the impact they had on you:

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997

I had stayed at my friend Dom's house the previous night. Dom was getting ready for Church, I was in the lounge watching the T.V. I didn't really understand what was happening but I heard she had died. I mentioned the news to Dom and her Dad when they came back into the lounge and I remember Dom's Dad saying to me, 'Princess Diana, dead? don't be silly.' I doubted myself! But it was true! I think it was unbelievable because I didn't really understand the significance of it. (I never took an interest in the news so I didn't know how popular she really was!) so I just mentioned it in a blase tone - like 'Oh yeah and by the way, Princess Di is dead', so its no wonder it needed confimation!

Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990 It passed me by too!

Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001

Well, firstly it was my 19th Birthday! I was working for the summer at the Salvation Army's Territorial Headquarters - opening post! Previously in the day I had been annoyed that I had to turn 19. Somehow, that paled into insignificance...

England's World Cup semi final v Germany - 4 July 1990

I have no memory of this happening. However, it was my brother's (Lee's) 10th birthday (wow, my family have famous birthday's!) so I am sure we were partying for other reasons. Surely Dad must have been watching...?

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963

What? When?

Umm, I tag Sarah, Becky Hills and Claire (maybe it means Claire will FINALLY blog again!!!)

My Holiday

So, I have had my holiday I thought I would give a brief outline of my few days away, so here goes:

Friday 15th

I went to my friend Rachel's pretty much straight from work. We stayed up late chatting (we had a lot to catch up on)

Saturday 16th

I think the picture sums it up!!! Yes, Rachel and I went shopping, and this was one of my purchases! Expect to see it over the next few months!!! Then I went home in the evening.

Sunday 17th

Church. After church, I packed and made my way to Bournemouth to visit my friend Mel. I had a long drive, then we spent the evening catching up.

Monday 18th

Mel was introduced to my gorgeous nephew, as we said a quick hello in passing to my brother and sister in law when they were about to travel back to Essex after visitng my grandparents in Bournemouth.

We then went ice skating, and I am proud to say I fell over twice. I have the bruises on my knees to prove it. Ice skating is actually good exercise. My legs took ages to recover! We then wondered around Bornemouth town centre for a while before going to the pub on the river; where I am also sporting my new jacket! After this we had a girly-DVD night. We watched PS I love you, 27 dresses and Step-up 2. Very relaxing!

Tuesday 19th

We went to my grandparents in the morning and watched some of the Olympics. Then we went to Poole and wondered around the shopping centre for a while. We went to the cinema to see Wall-e. We then went to visit another friend Dr Phil who now lives in Poole and spent the evening chatting and watching Evan Almighty. (I watched a LOT of films!!!)

Wednesday 20th

We went to Brownsea Island on a ferry: We went on a suggested walk, but there wre a number of different 'walks' we could choose from. We accidently kept swapping tracks and so we seemed to do a combination of different routes! We think that we must have walked about 3 miles. That was enough for us! It was a holiday after all. It all adds to the exercise though!!! We didn't spot any red squirrels which Brownsea Island is apparently famous for, but we did enounter a number of wasps!

After Brownsea Island we went for a walk around Sandbanks (The 'Hollywood' of Bournemouth!) and came across the house of my dreams. I LOVE IT! This is going to be my next house - when I marry a millionaire that is! It is amazing: This picture does NOT do it justice!

I will try to fix you

This is a new topic – not based on a previously discussed issue. I will come back to those, I just couldn’t help myself but blog about this: Beware – its personal!

I have always loved this song (see title) by Coldplay. However, I realised today that maybe we have got ourselves into the habit of needing to fix things, and people. I have mentioned a few of my personal but not particularly serious struggles to some of my colleagues recently and all the time, I get suggestions for how I might be able to help myself to fix them. I notice that I always seem able to find reasons why that ‘cure’ wont work. This then makes me come across as really negative and ungrateful (maybe I am), but most of the time it’s simply because I don’t place much priority on the need for the issue to be fixed. I will give an example: I don’t often take much holiday from work, mainly because I don’t like not having anything to do, I don’t like doing things on my own, and I don’t want to spend money on a proper holiday. Today someone made the suggestion that I try to use more of my leave, and I gave my reasons for not doing so. When people find out that those are my reasons, they always try to find ways to help. Well maybe if you…how about if…you could just… The truth is, they are all very good suggestions, and I would do well to listen to their advice. However, I just don’t really care enough about the issue to bother going to the hassle of ‘fixing’ it. Does it really matter that much if I don’t want a proper holiday? Does it really matter that much that I don’t like doing things on my own. Who says that I should try to change that?

Don’t get me wrong; I love that people are interested enough and caring enough to try to find solutions on my behalf. I love that they want to be involved in my life and want to play a part in shaping my journey. I am incredibly lucky to have some wonderful people in my life who care enough to find out about ‘me’. Because of all of this, I desperately don’t want to shove it back in their faces. I want to show I am grateful, and that I value their advice, but to be honest, I am quite happy with not taking that much leave from work. I know it’s not the norm, and people will say you need to have a break etc, but actually, I don’t feel that this is a problem that particularly needs fixing. I always respond to people suggestions negatively because I prefer things the way they are, but then I end up feeling guilty for not being excited or encouraged by their suggestions and not putting all my energy in to putting the suggestion into practice. Sometimes I think I get tired of trying to become the person other people think I should, or rather can, be.

Does anyone else ever get this?

I know I sound like a brat, and its probably a bit lazy too – but I can’t be bothered to do anything about some of the things that other people think I should fix in my life. There are things I recognise that I need to change. There are some very close friends who are currently doing their best to help me with those, and I am probably just as ungrateful to them too. I know I am in the wrong for that – these things really genuinely do need to change, and I know I need to try harder. But with other things, I just don’t care enough! I guess it’s considered ‘better’ to take a proper break and to be more independent, I just don’t want to make the effort to do that! Do you think I am becoming lazy about discipline?

Why do we always feel like we have to come up with a solution to other peoples so called ‘problems’. What if they don’t want them fixed? I think I can learn a lot of lessons from this in my dealings with other people too. It takes a lot of grace to sit and listen to someone complain about something when you know that they are choosing to stay in that position rather than make the effort to fix it – even for the simplest of things. I guess a lot of judgement is needing in deciding whether its something they should really be encouraged to change or whether its just ok for them to stay like that.