The Oppression of Perfection

I haven't written much of substance around here of late, aside from my on going Quiet Time Journal study of Ezekiel. That's been a surprisingly enjoyable study thus far and your encouraging words on it are appreciated. I'm at a point where I enjoy my reading and look forward to it, a place I haven't been in a long time.

But aside from that, and my Blogwalking posts, not much of substance has happened around here. I've found myself in a low spot lately. It seems that life has been conspiring against me of late. The ongoing issues with my car (still unresolved), lots of things around the house to fix and deal with, it's time to get the T'bird out and I again didn't get any projects on it done over the winter, etc. They seem trivial, but somehow they all add up to a feeling of hopelessness that hangs over me. It seems like I'm always chasing problems and issues.

Welcome to life, right?

What I've begun to understand is how I've bought into the idea that things can be perfect and right. There's a right way, the right way, and I should seek it and obtain it. So, I think somehow that if I wash my car enough, keep the salt off, change the oil at the proper time, etc it will be shiny, new and perfect forever. If I study enough, read enough, pray enough and think enough I'll achieve spiritual perfection. I'll know how to do church, which church is the church and who's a Christian and who isn't. If I finish this and that project around the house, put up that last piece of trim, pain that wall and get the patio done, I won't have to work on the house any more, it'll be right.

Ingrained in me in my upbringing & our culture of the past few decades is this idea that problems have individual, absolute and final solutions. It's the American 'can do' spirit, a Bob The Builder attitude ("Can we fix it? Yes we can!") that believes inherently that we are able to find all the answers and fix anything.

This pursuit of perfection, more over the belief that we can obtain and sustain it, is ultimately a lie. Worse yet, is once you've bought into it, even when you discover the lie, the mindset still lives in you, pushing you toward The Answer, even though you know it does not exist. I've long understood that things break, people fail, truth can be elusive and 'fuzzy' and that questions pile up faster than the answers. Yet, I still act as if that weren't true. In my heart, I want it all just so, just perfect, just right.

I've come to understand that this pursuit of perfection is oppressive to the core. It drags my soul down. Why? Well, for one, it is unobtainable. Things rot and decay. A freshly washed car immediately starts gathering dirt. (In fact, just washing the car reveals all the latest scratches and dings that the layer of grime was hiding!) Problems multiply. Questions abound. But the real reason that it's oppressive is because the heart behind it is inherently selfish. The reason to pursue perfection is to free time that would have been spent on problems for me and my plans. I'm not pursuing some high minded standard, I'm pursuing my own leisure, what I think will make me happy.

I think that by avoiding work and making more time for fun, I will be happy or fulfilled. The work is in the way, a necessary evil in life that must be endured to get to what I want to do. The cold truth is the opposite - God is a worker and He created us to work too. There is satisfaction in the work invoved to complete tasks and meet needs. When I seek to fix all the problems and find all the answers and put it all to bed for good, what I'm really saying is I want to avoid God's plan for me - to work and serve - and follow my plan - to relax and indulge.

God is at work, He created me to be at at work too. There will always be work to do. Rather than seeking to empty my to do list so I can get to the good stuff, I need to embrace the idea of the work being the good stuff. It's not the means to an end, in many ways it is the end itself.