Well, school is in full swing, and we had our first teacher's meeting for this school year on Tue. I gave the devotion, on something I’ve been pondering for some time now, perfectionism. Something my oldest said to me that made me think was that she thought I was hard on her and her sister, because I was hard on myself.
In preparing for this devotion/study, I ran across six blog entries by
Dr. Del Tackett Dr. Del Tackett the teacher for Focus on the Families truth project. Summarizing them into a short devotion, was quite the challenge, and I probably went over a little. Here is a small portion from the blogs, emphasis added, with the links below to the entire thing. I encourage you to take the time to read them, you will be blessed.
“Often when we read the English word “perfect” or “perfection” we may have in mind something entirely different. We may think that “perfection” means “precisely exact” or “purely pure”, without flaw. If so, then I believe we will misunderstand what God is saying to us in the vast majority of these passages. Look at the Greek word “katartizo” translated “perfection” in 2 Corinthians 13:11 (“Aim for perfection”, NIV). Vine defines that word as “to render fit”. That means to “make functional”.
In the realm of salvation and our relationship with God, the standard is pure holiness. Many of the “perfect” passages deal with this. We can’t achieve that, so God did so and does so for us. That is the glory of the Gospel. In the realm of human actions, we are called to act righteously and not sin. But those righteous actions do not carry a standard of “precise exactness”. If I am supposed to be kind to my neighbor, what “precisely” and “exactly” does that mean? Do I begin my conversation with “Good morning, Miss Quigley”, “Hello, Miss Quigley” or “Hi! What’s up?” Scripture doesn’t burden us with “precise exactness” in these things. So, in the social realm, I have Scriptural guidance to be “perfect” in kindness, gentleness, love, respect, etc., but without slavery to some sense of “this is exactly how you should do this or you will be imperfect”.”
10/24/207 First entry 11/19/207 Second entry 11/20/207 Third entry 11/30/207 Fourth entry 12/3/207 Fifth entry 12/5/207 Sixth entry I ended the summary with some thoughts of my own;
So my encouragement to us in all our areas of life is to seek the Lord, like Mary, and ask him to show use what Martha burdens or burdens of precise exactness WE have incorporated into our lives and to seek His help to let them go. May we all spend time focusing on our relationships with the Lord and others than the stuff in this world that so easily distracts us.
I want to leave you with one last verse that may also be the cause of some of the burdens we place on ourselves, from Proverbs 39:25 NIV
Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.
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