Tag: perfectionist

Romans 5:1-5 – Maybe There Can Be Peace…

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (New International Version)

Today, there are millions, perhaps billions, of people without peace in this world.

Maybe…

Maybe there isn’t much peace in your life. Because of that unsettled icky sense of agitation, your mind is somewhere else. It could be that you are upset about something that has happened or are worried about something that is going to happen. 

Maybe the lack of peace has to do with another person. They did or said something, and it’s been grinding on you. So, you are having conversations with that person in your head for which you will probably never say aloud. 

Maybe you have to deal with someone else who doesn’t have peace, and it’s creating stress for you. And you are wondering when things will settle down.

Maybe the lack of peace runs much deeper than your immediate circumstances and plans. 

Maybe every day, day-in-and-day-out, you are not quite sure about where you stand with a person or a group of people.

Maybe you aren’t sure about how you stand with God. You wonder whether God is really pleased with you, or not. 

Maybe you aren’t even in touch with your lack of peace because you are an expert at pushing whatever feelings you have so far down that you think you’re fine. But you really aren’t.

Maybe you are a perfectionist…

Perfectionists are never at peace. The specter of perfectionism always hangs in the air. There’s a steady stream of “should have’s,” and “could have’s” making noise in your head. Your work, no matter how good, is never good enough. “I should have done better.”  “I ought to do better.”  “I must be better.” 

Instead of viewing life’s opportunities as challenges to be welcomed, the perfectionist sees life as one unending mountain to climb, never quite reaching the top. 

The constant companions of perfectionistic people are disappointment, condemnation, frustration, and perceived failure. There is, for them, an internal world of self-loathing based on the lie that I am not enough – I have to be perfect. Peace, for the perfectionist, is a pipe dream.

Maybe we could focus a bit on God…

The Christian God is a triune God, existing in three persons – Father, Son, and Spirit – the great Three-in-One. The Trinity is the basis for all we are and all we do.

All of life is grounded in the triune God. God exists in perfect unity and harmony. God is God’s own community of glorious love. God’s glory is primarily seen on this earth through creation, through us, God’s creatures.

Glory is revealed as we reflect the image of God stamped on us in creation. Since God is love, God’s people are to be characterized by love – loving God, loving one another, and loving neighbor. God’s people are meant to exist together in unity and harmony, reflecting the very nature of the Holy Trinity. 

Yet, after the creation of the world and humanity, man and woman fell into guilt and shame through bucking God’s design for people. Ever since, God has been on a mission to reclaim the lost glory.

Maybe we need to focus on the Son… 

The ultimate expression of God’s mission was the sending of the Son to this earth. It is through Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension that the way has been opened to a renewed relationship with our triune God.

The way is now clear for us to experience real practical peace. It has been achieved through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since God has initiated a rescue mission for us by sending the Son, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God. 

To be justified means God made us righteous – has made things right between us. God has also provided access for us to be right with each other and the rest of creation. To put this in a contemporary vernacular, we ask God, “Are we good?” and God responds, “We’re good.”

Since then, we’re good with God, we have peace with God. 

Since then, that is true, we cannot try and get peace by another way.

Peace does not come through doing the right things, and by being a good person. 

Peace does not come through trying to obtain feelings of peace.

Peace is not merely the absence of conflict – of just keeping people from strangling each other and harming one another. 

Peace cannot be achieved by trying to relieve anxiety through better effort. 

Maybe grace is the answer…

The antidote to perfectionism, the resolution to feeling a lack of peace is unconditional approval from God. 

Grace is the elixir of life. 

Grace is the thing a perfectionist cannot work to obtain, and the thing that truly helps. 

Grace is freely given; it is a gift.   

Grace (God’s loving unconditional acceptance of us) is the true way of peace.

Some folks have so tied themselves to impossible performances and conditional love that the gift of grace is hard to accept. 

Change won’t happen overnight, and that’s okay – because God deals with us according to grace, not by earning spiritual merit badges. 

The renewal that brings transformation is a process, not an event. In Scripture it’s called “sanctification.” So, it’s important to enjoy the process. 

When you’ve caught yourself going back to the pigsty of perfectionism, instead of beating yourself up, go ahead and laugh at yourself and your own fallibility. Perfectionists take themselves way too serious. Anytime they can lighten up, it lights up the face of God (in a non-performance sort of way!).

Maybe peace is possible…

Peace delivers us from our brokenness.  Again, let’s return to the triune God. There is perfect peace within Father, Son, and Spirit. God is perfect unity, harmony, and love.

Peace means living, working, and playing together. 

Peace means experiencing wholeness, integrity, and contentment, even in the midst of hard circumstances. 

Peace means being a peacemaker.

The late Fred Rogers, from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, got into television because he didn’t like TV. During spring break of his senior year in seminary he encountered television for the first time. What he saw repulsed him because he saw people demeaning each other and not having peace.  

Fred Rogers worried that TV programming would create a generation of emotionally-bankrupt children. Faced with the decision to either sour on television itself or work to restore the medium, he chose the latter. He dropped out of seminary and began pursuing a career in broadcasting. Fourteen years later, he created a television show that shaped entire generations of children, running on PBS from 1968-2001.

Mr. Rogers was a devout Christian who rarely talked about his faith on the air. Yet, his show infused our society with beauty and grace. “You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you,” he’d famously sign off. “There is no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.” 

In many ways, the lasting legacy of Mr. Rogers will not only be the greater emotional stability of generations of children, but also his wonderful example of peace and how to restore the world through basic human kindness.

Maybe the path of peace is different than I believed…

Having all our circumstances like we want them is not the basis of experiencing peace. That’s being delusional. Peace doesn’t happen whenever everything goes our way.

Instead, we are to rejoice in all our circumstances, even the ones which cause suffering – because they the Holy Spirit’s means of teaching us to experience the peace we long for.

Suffering is our triune God’s way of weaning us off all that divides and antagonizes so that we can attach ourselves to God’s peace. 

One of the most read Christian books of all time was written in the 1500’s by a French woman known as Madame Guyon. She saw the disunity of the world and the lack of peace in our individual lives as stemming from our lack of practicing God’s ways. 

Much of the world doesn’t know what to do with suffering, and does not accept it, because people want their own way with everything.

War and Peace by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jamal D. Sutter

To know God’s peace, we must practice just the opposite – by refusing all personal desires we have, whether good or bad. Why? Because the practice of refusing our own will breaks it free so it can attach to God’s will.  

We need our brains to be rewired in saying “no” to ourselves.

The other part of Madame Guyon’s practice is to accept every circumstance, even difficulty and suffering, with joy and thanksgiving. 

We can learn to say “yes, thank you” for each hard circumstance, whether good or bad. As in the case of Mr. Rogers, the evil we observe can spur us toward making peace in this world. We detach from personal desires so we can attach to what God wants to do.

Peace, on the practical level, comes from persevering under suffering and rejoicing in it. Why rejoice? Because suffering produces character and character hope. There cannot be hope without suffering. 

God the Father called God the Son to suffer; and God the Spirit leads us into suffering so that we might know peace and hope on a daily basis.

Conclusion

Abandon everything to God. Let it go – every dream, every personal desire, everything you have so that you are free to know God’s will for your life. 

Accept each circumstance you face with joy and thanksgiving. The Trinitarian love of God is poured into our hearts through every circumstance of life, even if it is difficult and hard. 

When we practice abandonment of our wills and acceptance of our circumstances, the result gives us hope, the confident expectation that nothing in our lives happens in vain. 

Every situation can lead us to know God and experience peace. This is very different from simply believing in the Trinity; it is to daily experience the Trinity. 

Glorious God, make your presence known through our worship, our prayer, and our reading of your Word. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, within you lies unity, love, justice, peace, and power.

Fill our outstretched hearts with your Spirit and encircle us with your love. Make yourself known to us in new and challenging ways. Empower us to forsake every will but your own.  Inspire us toward your peace. Do with us what you will, through Christ our Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Confessions of a Perfectionist

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            

 

 
            Hello, my name is Tim and I am a recovering perfectionist.  There was a time in my life when perfectionism ruled all areas of my life.  The need for consistent daily routines with no ability to deal with anything outside that terrain of the familiar caused me to have the illusion that I was in control, competent, and, well, perfect.  To fail at anything meant I was a worthless person, which made me unacceptable to myself and fed a constant stream of beating myself up emotionally for my imperfections.
 
            A wise professor once said to me:  “Tim, can you be a good enough pastor?”  He was asking me if I could be responsible and do what needed to be done without being an obsessive-compulsive mess about it.  He was pointing out to me that to do my best was good enough, period.  That was solid stuff for me.  The pastoral vocation is one in which, even doing something to the height of perfection, may lead a parishioner to complain about what you did wrong or fault you for some perceived deficiency.  If a church leader is not secure in the love and grace of Jesus Christ, it is a prescription for burn-out, strained relationships with family, and depression.  Perfectionism is not something to embrace as a virtue; it is the sin of working for approval and acceptance, instead of relying in the identity of being hidden in Christ.
 
            The pathology of my perfectionism was a bent toward all-or-nothing thinking – having complete control or no control at all.  If I could not do something perfect, I did not do it at all.  I have since been learning to live in the in-between world of little-by-little, day-by-day change, where most of life is actually lived.  Most of our daily existence is lived in the mundane, in the constant rhythm of a three-steps-forward, two-steps-backward kind of life.  It is simply unrealistic to think that the Christian life can be some sort of unending progressive path of perfection.  It would be like a baseball player thinking he should be able to bat 1.000 without ever striking out.
 
            Becoming holy along the road of spiritual sanctification means we will, little by little, day by day, one step at a time, have our sinful desires exposed, our wrong thinking and feeling patterns revealed, our self-protective styles of relating, our avoidance of conflict and pain, all seen for what they are.  Without seeing our sin for what it is, we will never see God’s grace for what it is.  To slowly and deliberately learn to live in the faith and grace of Jesus is our greatest task, and our highest joy.  Living in this space of grace is what helps us to recognize the whispers of Satan:  “You’ll never be good enough,” and “You should never make mistakes.”  The devil is into trying to make us feel ashamed for whom we are; God is trying to help us confess our idolatry and turn to Jesus.
 

 

            Can you think the thought that God delights over you?  Can you believe that you have been created in God’s image and likeness, and are, therefore, precious to him apart from what you do or don’t do?  Can you accept that you are loved by God?  Can you live with yourself?  Grace is the key that unlocks the door of salvation.  Use it.

Hope for the Perfectionist

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry Blog2 Comments

 

            Perfectionism, in my humble opinion, is one of the greatest maladies affecting the church today.  One of the reasons for this is that it perpetually goes un-diagnosed.  After all, the church servant who will go over and above putting in hours to make the ministry team successful is hailed by others.  The pastor who will drop everything at any time for a parishioner receives accolades as one who cares.  The teacher who crafts a lesson in such incredible detail awes her students.  It goes beyond the walls of the church, as well.  The woman who keeps a perfect physique garners the respect and attention of both men and women.  The man who works tirelessly for the company and his clients may receive awards and promotions, and the praise of his boss.
 
            But it all has a steep price:  the inability to distinguish between excellence and perfection, and the cost of becoming hopelessly depressed.  Perfectionists constantly “should” and “ought” themselves to death.  Their work, no matter how good, is never good enough.  “I should have done better.”  “I ought to be able to do better.”  “I must be, do, and look better.”  Instead of viewing life’s opportunities as challenges to be welcomed, the perfectionist sees life as one unending insurmountable mountain to climb, never quite reaching the top.  The constant companions of perfectionist people are disappointment, condemnation, frustration, and perceived failure.  It is an internal world of self-deprecation based on the lie that I can’t just be good enough – I have to be perfect.
 
 
 
            People might like to always have a perfectionist doing the work (which is why they continually get asked to do everything!) but, to put it both biblically and bluntly, perfectionism is sin.  Perfectionism is a nice shiny way of saying legalism.  Legalists rigidly overemphasize external results, do’s and don’ts, rules and regulations, and have expectations for themselves and others that can never be attained.  Sound familiar?  The perfectionist fits right into this sinful way of thinking.  In other words, the legalist/perfectionist has a fragile spirituality dependent on personal performance.  They have such a finely tuned sense of guilt that it is literally impossible to ever meet their own standards.  No wonder many perfectionists struggle mightily with anxiety attacks and depression.
 
            There is only one antidote to perfectionism:  unconditional approval from God.  That is, grace is the elixir of life.  Grace is the only thing the perfectionist can’t work to obtain.  God’s grace is freely given, not dependent on abilities, and un-repayable.   God’s loving acceptance of us has nothing to do with our worthiness.  Recovery for the perfectionist can only occur by a radical acceptance of grace.  Perfectionists have been so programmed by themselves to impossible performance and conditional love that this extreme gift of grace is hard to take.  Change won’t happen overnight, and that’s okay.  It’s okay because God deals with us according to grace, not by earning spiritual merit badges.  The renewal that brings transformation of the perfectionist mind is typically a process.  Here is a really radical idea and thought for the perfectionist:  enjoy the process.  When you have caught yourself going back to the pig sty of perfectionism, instead of beating yourself up, go ahead and laugh at yourself and your own fallibility.  Perfectionists take themselves way too serious.  Anytime they can lighten up, it lights up the face of God (in a non-performance sort of way!).
 
            Jesus said that we should come to him because he will give us rest (Matthew 11:28-30).  He said that his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.  It isn’t anything like the heavy yoke of legalistic perfectionism.  So, take that good news from Jesus and enjoy a better way to live.  Jesus will never leave you, nor forsake you, even when you screw up.
 
Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears;
The bleeding Sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the throne my surety stands, before the throne my Surety stands,
My name is written on His hands.  –Charles Wesley