To be perfect. It’s amazing that we are asked to be perfect. We both know that I am not and you are not. So how do we deal with this?
It’s a new year. Many make resolutions to be better, act better, and become what they dream to be. God has asked us to be perfect. Why? I have to admit that many times Christians are the least perfect (me more than others). We are often more judgmental, flawed, and hurtful. I know I fight it in myself. I hope you do too.
Maybe it is because we expect perfection when it’s too soon? Can we be perfect here in this life? C.S. Lewis writes:
“When He said, ‘be perfect’, he meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder - in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”
I find hope. I shouldn’t expect myself to fly right away. I first have to hatch. I think I’m a decent egg but holding on to that would make me go bad.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about a dream. He was given a vision of perfection. He talked about it in such a way that people felt as if they could really touch it. It didn’t happen over night. We are still not there. We might not get there in this world. That doesn’t stop us from trying, continuing the fight, willing & wanting to move forward, and sacrificing to get there.
So perfection is maybe not about being at all? Maybe it’s more about the journey. To understand my own shortcomings, ignorance, judgments, selfishness, and all the other things that are slowly turning me rotten - and to change it. Perfection could be movement?
I know I have to go in for the full treatment. I know He meant what he said. I have to go through the painful transformation - or go bad. It does not just include me to become perfect in Him, but to fight for perfection and justice around me. In that fight I have to be just as forgiving as He is of me.
It scares me and excites me at the same time. What a terrible task, how could I even dream of getting there. I know I will fail many times again. I know I will beat myself up over failing. And yet, what a great hope, what great forgiveness. We have a chance to make a difference. We have a chance to make history. We can be perfect in the true sense of the word.
“How we spend our days is - of course- how we spend our lives.” - Anne Dillard