Being a perfectionist!!

What is a perfectionist anyway, is it someone who is perfect or someone who expects perfect?

I think the latter. Both as professionals and as Christians we can get caught up in perfectionism.

In our work lives or at home we have expectations. I know for me with some things I can picture them much better than I can perform them, i.e. art or carpentry. I can form a great outcome in my mind, but the real outcome does not measure up. Our world is a world of high and many times very unrealistic expectations. We expect to make money by the boat load, women try to measure up to the celebrities, we try to mold our kids into celebrities, we expect to be debt free at a certain age......we all try to measure up.

I am a perfectionist, someone who puts outlandish expectations on themselves. It’s not all bad, but I have found that over the years and through experiences this has snowballed into a challenge for me. I expect too much firstly from myself and secondly from others. How did this happen? Well it’s not only my nature, but I believe that the soul searching/ rock bottom experiences I have had have contributed. Even a medical doctor said recently "you’re too hard on yourself". Others have said you’re too serious, you gotta have some fun, you think too much. I wonder sometimes what others would do and how they would respond to my experiences, or how I would respond to those of others. Its funny how we are all experts on other peoples stuff.

My experience with going through difficult things is that when they happen, I long to please God, to know what he wants from me. As Christians we believe that God molds us through hard times and that sometimes he even allows things to happen to us to wake us up. So in our house and with some of our experiences being: crying out to God because we could not have children, then miscarrying, then having children, then my wife contracting fleshing eating after a birth and it altering her life forever, then her contracting another serious and life threatening infection, then a bad accident, then her contracting another life threatening infection, then my cancer........you start to get a bit paranoid and wonder "what am I doing wrong here". You cry out to God continually, wanting to and hoping that you are pleasing to him. You start thinking like a perfectionist and in my case not only one that is hard on myself but picks apart others flaws also. It can be a trap, a guilt ridden one. Some have commented to the affect "whatever God is trying to teach you guys", you better figure it out. Before you know it you don’t know what inner voice you are listening to, the Holy Spirit or guilt (Satan).

While I still firmly believe that a Christian should "Run the race in such a way as to get the prize (1 Cor 9:24)", I am also learning that there is a balance between striving and letting go and letting God. Through bible study and therapy I am learning that it’s important to rest, to let life come to you (not to worry), to be more in the moment, to rest in God's plan. After all, I have been in 5 serious accidents in my life, have cancer, have done many foolish things that could have gone poorly and I am still here.......God has a plan and a purpose and yes I need to strive to act like his child, but more importantly I need to "let GO and Let God do the perfecting!

He is the perfectionist, I need to willingly let him do his thing. On a daily basis and sometimes more often I need to just say "do your thing Lord" and let his amazing powers work through me and in me instead of "trying to measure up".

Below is an excellent reading from the devotional "Jesus Calling"