I guess there are things that are going to be a challenge all my days. I look back at things I blogged about last year that still haunt me. Or something I'll read in a book or the Bible one day that seems so apropos and so applicable and then I can't seem to make it work in my soul the very next day. Apparently "getting it right" (is that a perfectionist voice sticking out?) isn't goine to be a one time project but an ongoing life long process. I remember as a teenager recognizing that I am overly self-sufficient (self dependent?) and have struggled to put things in God's hands. So what do I struggle with when I'm ahem, 40-something? I'm self-sufficient and don't trust.
Last year I blogged in "I'm damaging my calm" about knowing God's love is unconditional and yet finding myself straining and thinking well, if I tried harder at this or that....maybe I'd get better results. I blame myself for the results rather than trusting in a loving God who cares about me and living whole in that, end of sentence, nothing to do with what I DO.
One thing that I know that is a constant challenge for me is not knowing when enough is enough. In the fund raising process, as I've complained a few times in the last year, it is slow and there is very little feedback on whether things are working or not. So that "getting it right" voice, says, "well, maybe if you....fill in the blank." I have over the last year or maybe always not known when I've done my best and when I've crossed the line into striving. This has come at the price of a deep exhaustion this year. Do you have any tricks for knowing when enough is enough?
The odd thing is I still know and believe but somehow don't know how to function in the fact that I am God's precious child. I do not need to earn his acceptance or approval but simply accept that love. But I am the child on the swings, sure of the Father's love, yet calling out to him, "Do you see me? See how high I swing? Is it good?" And I think all the time, He may be trying to get me to go inside and have a nap.
You're ahead of me on the self-sufficiency/self-trust issue. I only recently discovered how bad I am (and boy am I). I have been seriously convicted in my recent Bible reading with how little I allow myself to truly trust in God.
ReplyDeleteFor my own part, I am not very good at knowing where "enough" is, and I overcompensate to make sure I don't fail on my side. I wonder if part of the work that God does in perfectionists is help us eventually ask a better question than if we do enough. We don't do enough and we never will because we aren't perfect. We can only become perfect through His perfection rather than through surviving the gauntlet mistake-free. In fact, I don't think God will allow us perfectionists to do things mistake-free because that would encourage us to not trust in Him.
I think you hit the nail on the head. If WE do enough, it is us and not God. That is the heart of the perfectionists problem. I can't believe I have been a Christian so long and can't manage to trust more.
ReplyDeleteJust came across this blog. Ironically, my last name is "Hartman," my faith-based band is called "Hartman" and we just wrote a song called "Do You See Me" for a faith-based film called "Pendulum Swings." Here's a link to the video... http://youtu.be/RsU7YU8u43Q and the blog about the song... http://jshartman.blogspot.com/2011/02/do-you-see-me-behind-song.html
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