{"id":4526,"date":"2018-05-06T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T14:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=4526"},"modified":"2018-05-16T18:33:10","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T23:33:10","slug":"choose-progress-over-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=4526","title":{"rendered":"Choose Progress Over Perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet Another Year of Choices<\/em><\/p>\n

By Barbara Dahlgren<\/em><\/p>\n

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Reading \u201cBe ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect\u201d in Matthew 5:48 reminds me of all my imperfections \u2013 which are many to be sure. The imperfection I hate most in my life is that I\u2019m not perfect.<\/p>\n

Those who struggle with perfection know too well the feeling of never really being good enough. We are like those children learning to write the alphabet for the first time who tear their papers up the second they see they have malformed a letter. It makes no difference that they made it to the \u201cR\u201d without a problem. If the \u201cS\u201d looks sloppy, then in the trash it goes. Instead of focusing on the progress made, they focus on their lack of perfection. Instead of looking at how far they\u2019ve come, they lament about how far they need to go to achieve perfection. It can be very discouraging.<\/p>\n

In psychological terms, perfectionism is the belief that perfection can and should be attained. When that belief transforms into thinking anything less than perfect is unacceptable, problems set in. Through a perfectionist\u2019s eyes, a person\u2019s self-worth is determined by flawlessness. Of course, ideas of perfection vary from person to person. Perfectionists set rigid standards of performance for themselves and sometimes for others. They never feel they \u201cmeasure up\u201d and neither does anyone else. Perfection is greatly overrated.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite movie lines comes from Mary Poppins when she humorously replies, \u201cWe practically perfect people never make mistakes.\u201d Poppins, like most everyone else, links perfection to lack of mistakes. Sometimes Christians make the same error in reading the Bible. Actually the word \u201cperfect\u201d in the above scripture in Greek is \u201ctelios\u201d meaning finished, full grown, mature, lacking nothing, or brought to completeness. It has nothing to do with making mistakes or not being good enough.<\/p>\n

People commonly think that all perfection is about physical actions such as being good, successful, or sinless. When God speaks of perfection, He wants us to \u201cbe complete\u201d by being spiritually one with His Son Jesus Christ. This perfection is not designed to make us look good or perform flawlessly, but to let Christ\u2019s life be manifest through us. Physical perfection is more concerned about actions we perform to a certain level, whereas spiritual perfection is about becoming totally dependent on God, letting Him work through us to perform His will \u2013 not ours. It is not concerned about \u201cself.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The good news is that we are already perfect in God\u2019s sight. We are reconciled through Jesus Christ and He lives in us. This comes not from our false concepts of trying to attain perfection or being good enough. It is a gift given freely to us. With Christ in us, we are brought to completion and we lack nothing.<\/p>\n

Consider this… Will we make mistakes? Sure. But a spiritually mature Christian tries not to make the same mistake twice. That\u2019s progress!<\/p>\n

One final thought\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christians aren\u2019t perfect, just forgiven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yet Another Year of Choices By Barbara Dahlgren Reading \u201cBe ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect\u201d in Matthew 5:48 reminds me of all my imperfections \u2013 which are many to be sure. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}