Perfectionism

So I’ve been thinking about this idea of perfection in a culture that seems to be obsessed with it.  Being an athlete and musician, I was raised in an atmosphere where competition and performance breeds perfectionism.

“And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good (suitable, pleasant) and He approved it completely.”  Gen 1:31a

Did you catch that?  Our perfect God made everything “very good”.  Hmm. Perhaps in His infinite wisdom and understanding he purposefully made us and this world. . . very good.  Perhaps He foreknew that perfect would be to our destruction, that if His creation was perfect, it would negate the need for His involvement. Perhaps he understood that perfection and the pursuit of it would in fact bring misery and disappointment in a world that was broken, so he set the precedent in the beginning.  Maybe all along God’s goal was never perfection as we perceive it in this world, but that He approves completely of it’s absence.

Which begs the question. . . is perfection here on earth God’s motivation, or is it man’s?  Could it be that when we are consistently chasing after perfection or that perfect thing, that we are agreeing with man’s way of life? That we are chasing after an. . . idol?

But there is something that God sees as perfect.  Perfection to God is when His servant does life with Him.  When we move with the Spirit, when we obey His promptings, and do life His way.  This is an eternal life: in Him, filled with the Spirit, and in perfect unison.