Accidental time traveler

I would really like to be perfect, but I am increasingly aware that perfection is not in the cards for me. Life has a pretty solid habit of giving me something to be humble about every single day. My false self would like to “get it right” as a husband, father, son, brother, boss, friend, customer, citizen, and priest all the time, but 50 years in that’s not the track I’m on. 

Turns out that’s a good thing.

Because the desire to be perfect is the enemy of peace.

The desire to be perfect and “get it right” all the time is also a sure-fire way to not be present in the present which is where all the peace, joy, and fun actually happens.

The goal of being perfect and always saying and doing the right thing has made me into an accidental time traveler. When I am in the unhappy groove of wanting to be perfect I find myself unconsciously traveling into my past to wrestle regretfully with things I wish I hadn’t done or said, or traveling at break-neck speed into the future to worry over things I hope I’ll be able to say or do. As I travel back and forth through time I hop over the present which is where life is actually joyfully and generously unfolding as a gift from God whose love for me is ceaseless no matter how I score on the perfection metric.

God must look down on me and grow weary watching me run back and forth between the past and the present. I sometimes get a beautiful and comforting sense that God’s great hope for me is that I’ll just stand still and accept the grace on offer in the present moment - no performance required.

I don’t know why I sometimes slip into wanting to be perfect. It’s a devilish device of my false self. Maybe it’s my “thorn in the flesh” which is a strange wound that won’t ever fully heal because it’s the injury that keeps me God-dependent. Grace runs downhill like water always seeking the lowest spot, which means that grace is constantly streaming toward my desire to be perfect. Thus my character defect is a magnet for God’s love. 

Sometimes, well meaning friends will offer advice on how to conquer our defects, but I increasingly see places of deficit as the very spot where God is waiting on us. My sense is that being healed of our defects is not as important as being clear about them and offering them up to God. After all, it was God who made me, presumably He knew what he was getting into when he created me.

So, I guess I’m coming full circle. Maybe my desire to be perfect is actually a gift because I am not going to be able to pull it off, which means I’m always going to have cause for being humble which means I’m always going to be reliant on God’s unconditional love. My defect is my gift, and my gift is my defect. That seems pretty perfect.