Programmed for Perfect...

When I think of the word "Perfect"...there are some automatic feelings or associations that pop to mind.  I'll admit, it's a word I don't like.  I've heard and even said things like the following about others...

 

"Oh, they're the perfect family..."

 

"She has such a perfect body..."

 

"That girl is a perfect student..."

 

"Their life is perfect..."

 

"How was your day?" Perfect.

 

"How did your date with that guy go?"  Perfect.

 

"She has the most perfectly behaved children..." (HA!)

 

It's a personal opinion but I believe we live in a world where we are programmed to crave this lofty attribute called perfection. Perfect, in my mind, is something you say about things or people that seem to have everything under control or who never seem to have bad things happen to them.  Perfect is a status symbol and it's a personality type (perfectionist).  It's something to describe someone who appears unblemished.  Perfect is supposed to mean that things are easy and lack pain and are effortless.  Right?   

 

But what if it isn't supposed to mean that at all IF it's looked at in the right context? 

 

I've been going through a study of James recently...well errrr maybe I should rephrase...I've recently recommitted to a study of James after starting and then stopping and starting again.  It is one of my favorite books of the Bible no doubt but it took me a little umph to get into this study.  Now, though, I'm really loving it. 

One thing that has really been heavy on my mind these recent days is the fact that I spent so many years feeling like I had a good relationship with God  and considered myself "close" to Him simply because I didn't disbelieve. I believed He existed and I believed I needed salvation so those two facts, in and of themselves, made me feel comfortable enough to claim I had a close relationship with Him.

Not so, I'm learning. 
 

I look back over the "history" of my relationship and know I would have claimed that I loved God. What I realize now is that you can't truly love someone you don't really know and, more importantly, you can't deepen a relationship you're not intentional about deepening. I had the relationship equivalent with God of a teenage girl who hung out with a girlfriend a couple times and then started signing the notes she passed in class with, "Love ya!"

Love ya, God! Thanks for being there when I'm stressed out and thanks for being a good life insurance policy! 

 

I love you, Lord...so different, I'm realizing.

 

Now please, let me make sure to say that I feel like I have a LONG way to go and I make no claims to have any answers for anyone else.  As simply as I can say it: each person's journey...the specific length of the journey, the lessons learned, the ebb and flow of that relationship...is between each person and God.  In fact, I've learned from personal experience and from talking with some of my close friends about their faith, that sometimes the most profound experiences with God have come out of unlikely circumstances and even struggles.  God doesn't make cookie cutter people...so there is no way we can expect Faith to be cookie cutter, either.

 

I guess I'm writing all thise to say there was a verse that really surprised me recently...one I have heard a thousand times...and it even surprised me that I was surprised.   As if that makes any sense except in my own head.  But anyway, in learning this new thing, I learned more about God's complexity and felt a deepening in my Spirit toward Him.  I love to get to know Him.  I confess, I don't do it enough, I don't do it every day, and the bells don't go off every time.  But they go off enough that I feel the need to keep coming back!

So the latest "bell" is about this word "Perfect".  In James 1:17 that says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above..." 

 

That verse is written below a framed photo of LC (above) that hangs in my house...a gift from my friend, Greta, for LC and I's Homecoming from TX.  Every time I look at it, I feel agreement...that little girl is a good and perfect gift for us. 

 

I've recently been shocked to realize our long, painful, heart-breaking struggle with infertility...for DW and I, it was a good and perfect gift, too.  I know that sounds crazy and I know that if someone tried to tell me that...correction, when people tried to tell me that...in the midst of it all, it only served to make me angry.  Like, really angry. 

 

In an effort to rewind a little and be totally honest, that's something I didn't really open up about on the blog.  I would post when I was hurting...and I would post when I felt like God showed His faithfulness to me...but I didn't post when I was really angry.  I just need to acknowledge there were those times.  I may not have written about them but there were so many times where people said things to be helpful and it just absolutely, for lack of a better way to phrase it, made me want to claw their eyes out of their head. 

 

So, back to that "Perfect" word...how can I possibly look back on a decade of heartache and be able to think or have the audacity to even say that season of infertility was "perfect" for me?

 

Well, its all in how I just realized it was defined.  Teleios.  "Every good and teleios gift is from above."  The word "Perfect" in that verse is translated directly from the Greek word "teleios".  It means:

 

1. Mature or full grown, having arrived at an end or objective.

2. That which has achieved or reached its goal, objective, purpose.

 

My journey with infertility achieved its objective.  It fulfilled its purpose.  God had a little girl that was perfect for our family...a little girl who needed us and who would bring an infinite measure of joy to our lives in return.  But let me be honest: if I had gotten pregnant years ago, which was MY plan, the odds that we would have been blessed with LC are slim to none. 

It is my belief none.  I know me.  I know that, by the time LC arrived in the world, God had brought me to a place of brokenness.  I know that God (for years) permitted a very painful heartache, He  accepted that I would be very confused...He even let me have my spiritual "teenage years" where I lived with a heart of anger and inner rebellion toward Him.  He let me walk through a lot of fire. 

 

By the time I stepped out of those flames, MY plan was scorched beyond all recognition.  I didn't care about it anymore...it wasn't working...and I kept feeling like God was saying, "Lay it down, baby girl.  Lay down that plan you are so determined to hang on to...I have something better." 

 

And still I hung on.  I hung on until one day the burden became too great, too heavy and I laid down all that brokenness and gave in.  Ok.  Your will...not mine.  I caved.   Not quickly, not easily, not necessarily even willing...but I did finally cave.

I know I'm repeating a theme here from several other older posts...but I can't help it.  I personally think about it daily.  Left to myself, I would have missed God's truly perfect gift for us.  Looking at the word "perfect", in this light, gives me hope for other areas of my life going forward...perfect isn't the dirty word I've always thought of it as. 

You (God) will keep the mind that is dependent on You in perfect peace, for it is trusting in You. - Isaiah 26:3  

Perfect peace.  Not a peace that just happens...not a peace someone can summon up because they're a better Christian than someone else...not a status someone can achieve by being on good/better/best behavior.  Instead, its simply a peace that Christ gives us as a gift...it's an assurance that whatever struggle, heartache, pain comes our way...it is to fulfill a specific objective, it is headed toward some goal that is for our best. 

 

Will there be times where, in the thick of the storm we doubt?  Oh yea...   Will there be times where we wonder where God has gone or why we seem forgotten... I'm sure.  But will there also be a day when the days in the desert make sense...? No doubt. 

 

For every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights; with Him there is no variation (He is unchanging) or shadow cast by turning (His promises are secure). 

 

Life happens in between the first step of a journey and the final curtain call.  Am I able to believe Him when He promises He has a perfect plan for my life?  And the answer to that is for me personally is...Yes, a little more every day. 

The more I get to know you, Lord, the more I believe in you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.  John 14:27