How Are we to Achieve Perfection?
As a young girl I used to look at other families and think how perfect they were. They had dads who encouraged them and who showed up at their school events. Their families did things together, like going on holidays or going to church. And so, my list went on.
I would see these families together and wish I were a part of them. I longed for the day when I could have my own family and have things be as ideal as I perceived them to be in the families around me.
I even carried this attitude into my own married life thinking how “perfect” other households were compared to my own. In my mind, I must be at fault because my marriage and family life were not like that of those around me. I tried very hard to have us be the model family but it just never happened. Such aching, to be something other than what we were, left me empty, hurting, and frustrated.
What I never considered at that time was that no home is faultless. Every family has its struggles and challenges. Many families deftly hide what is really going on at home and portray an image to the world of harmony and peace even when their lives are full of turmoil. Others just go about living, regardless of the difficulties they are facing.
Thinking that other families had some magic ingredient to make them work left me feeling inadequate. I read book after book about parenting and marriage, trying hard to do the right things to make my home to be what I considered to be the perfect one. I became stressed and exasperated as I tried in vain to attain something that really isn’t possible on this earth. True perfection doesn’t exist here.
Where the perfection lies is in Jesus Christ and what He has done for all of us. In Hebrews it says:
“For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews 10: 14 ESV)
What that means is – when we believe in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and that by His death on the cross (the single offering) all our sins are forgiven; we are made perfect. Now when God looks at us forgiven sinners, He doesn’t see the sin because it is covered over by the precious blood of Jesus.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites needed to complete sacrifices often. One was never enough. But we donāt have that anymore. Christ did it all for us ā once only.
This fact certainly takes the pressure off. We don’t have to be anything but God’s forgiven children. Yes, we may still strive to have a good family life and marriage, productive careers and so on; but through that we are assured that God is taking care of us. His grace and mercy abound and the only true happiness and peace come from Him.
Striving for perfection is a daunting exhausting process. How much healthier it is for us to just work at making our way through life in the best, most God pleasing way possible. Each day given to us is a treasure. As we bask in the glow and promise of our resurrected Lord we can move forward with faith and confidence. We donāt have to meet any particular standard other than to believe that Jesus died for our sins, once and for all.
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