If you’re any like me, you are well aware of your shortcomings long before any other person has the chance to point them out. Though you try to shake the thoughts, you can’t help but feel the weight of your mess-ups and the insecurity of your flaws looming overhead. Maybe you find yourself circling the dead end of defeat, as you can never seem to find the strength to straighten the wheel and begin to move off the street of your sins, may it be anger or lust, selfishness or indifference that leaves you in the dead place of being your own worst critic. After all, you are just judging yourself the way God does, right? So that you’re not surprised when you scarcely enter the streets of gold just to hear the words “well, you made it, but just barely”.
It’s not that you don’t want God, Christian, but rather that He probably doesn’t want your messed up self anyways. Not anymore at least, after all this time of knowing Him and still failing. And even when you are seeking after Him with all that’s in you and you feel all puffed up and are so proud of the great job you are doi….. oh wait. Dead end.
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I was watching a tv show last night where the girl’s father always referred to her as his “perfect girl”. For a while, the young girl cherished that term and the remembrance of those words brought her much comfort. This was only until she found herself on my dead end street, defeated and well aware of just how imperfect she really proves to be. After a royal mess up that would for sure do her in this time, her dad consoles her and ends his speech using his favorite term, “my perfect girl”.
“Perfect?! Why do you keep calling me that?!” the young girl cried. “I messed up, I always mess up! I’m not perfect!”.
The father leans toward the tired girl who’s only wish is to one day live up to her father’s favorite term and obvious expectation of who she was meant to be to say these profound words:
“I call you my perfect girl because you are perfect to me, not because I expect you to be perfect all the time.”
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I heard this sentence and paused the show, not being able to grab my journal quick enough to write down the words that I believe will mark my life once again. This is the exact thing that Holy Spirit has been trying to speak to me in all of my striving and hence, my failing. I couldn’t believe that the sound coming out of my laptop speaker had really been the voice of God speaking the very thing that my weary, working-for-love heart didn’t know that I needed to hear.
In Christ, we are made perfect. The blood of the lamb removed my sins and yours and the Lord in all His kindness then threw those sins into the sea of forgetfulness. The enemy likes to swim down and gather all of my sins and bring them to the surface, to the forefront of my memory. He shows me my sins of old and my sins from this morning alike, all of which he uses to remind me that I can’t be a Christian, not with all of this mess in between me and God. Or if I do by chance make it into the Lambs Book of Life, I’ll for sure be on the last page, in a column of my own that reminds God to tell me when I get there how I barely made it. The enemy tells me that I can get to heaven still, if I do everything from here on out just perfect, as I am expected to be, and that I can hang up any desire to be used by God until then.
The only problem is that this isn’t the Gospel. God sent Jesus to die in our place because we aren’t perfect and we could never uphold the righteous standard that is required for communion with the Holy One.
And, after we have accepted Christ into our hearts and have given Him reign over our lives, God now sees us as perfect, not because we are or ever will be on this side of heaven, but because He looks lovingly at us through the filter of His Son, the only One who is.
Of course, as we journey with the Lord He expects us to be transformed into a version of ourselves that more closely resembles Him. As we grow in intimacy with the Father, we should see our old ways wasting away. I also believe however, that the closer we get to God, the more inadequate those of us who are our worst critics will feel as we find ourselves on our face before the Perfect One, realizing that even our righteousness is dirty compared to Him. This feeling of being less than perfect isn’t meant to condemn us, “for there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1), but to further invite us to peel back the layers of our heart and discover what else God is bidding us to shed off of our lives in our pursuit of Him.
This verse is my reminder, and perhaps yours:
“Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. Selah” – Psalm 68:19
Let me break it down. Praise the Lord. Every day, He holds us up. He encourages us, and He strengthens us. God is our salvation.
And don’t forget perhaps the most important thing for our striving heart to remember.
Selah. Pause. Take a break. Rest in Him, he’s not angry that you aren’t perfect, He sent His Son to be perfect because you can’t be.
My good works and distorted idea of perfection and yours alike aren’t what hold us up daily, and definitely aren’t what bring us our salvation. Praise God.
“I call you my perfect one because you are perfect to me, not because I expect you to be perfect all the time.” – YOUR Father
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Here are some of my favorite songs to listen to as reminders to rest in what God has done for me, rather than strive to be good enough for Him. I pray you are encouraged by these words:
Meet Your Maker – John Mark Pantana
You put no heavy weights on me. You say, “Come. Rest and receive.” All of those years I was wounded by religion. You unwind me. You calm all my striving. You lay your peace over me like blankets. You put an end to my pretending show. You are the least religious Person that I know.
Touch Your Robe – Gable Price and Friends
When you made your heart my home, you didn’t make me take my shoes off, you didn’t care what I’ve stepped in, cause when you say I’m clean, I’m clean.
Your Blood is Strong Enough – Maverick City Music & UPPERROOM
‘Cause you’ve checked out all the religious activities and you still look in the mirror and see someone who’s not worth it. But without your help His blood is still strong enough. Without your goodness, without your church attendance, His blood is still strong enough. He doesn’t need any help from your actions. It still has the same power on your best day that it did on your worst day.
The Father’s House – Cory Asbury
Sometimes on this journey I get lost in my mistakes. What looks to me like weakness is a canvas for your strength. You never wanted perfect, you just wanted my heart.
Nothing Without You – Will Reagan & United Pursuit
Oh God, peel back the layers of my heart. I want communion, I want fellowship, I want to be with you where you are.
All my love,
Meg
