“Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” — Ecclesiastes 7:20
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Once while I was watching a professional gymnastics competition, the commentator said something during the floor exercise for one of the gymnasts. They pointed out the gymnast’s power and how it must be controlled in order to land in bounds and not receive a point deduction. However, they also noted that sometimes the athlete can become so focused on trying to be perfect and not making a mistake that it can sometimes have the opposite effect. They can end up going out of bounds anyway, even though they were desperately trying not to.
In psychology, scientists often point out this effect because as soon as you repetitively focus on avoiding something, you oddly often end up running into or doing what you tried to avoid. Whether it’s skiing through trees on a snowy mountain and telling someone not to hit the trees (over and over) or telling your teenager not to do drugs or party, the psychological impact is still the same: Whatever we most focus on, even if it’s something we need to avoid, is what our brains will fixate on, and we may end up falling into exactly what we wanted to steer clear of.
In sports and in life, excellence is a very worthy goal. We want to strive to do a good job at what we put our minds to and time toward. But the danger can be that we become obsessed with excellence to the point where we begin to operate on perfectionism, where nothing is ever good enough and we are so focused on getting it right that we miss other things along the way too. Add into this that, as Christians, many of us feel the pressure of Jesus’ command in Matthew 5:48 to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
There’s a big difference, though, in trying to be perfect like God and trying to imitate God. Trying to be perfect like God immediately sets us up for failure because, realistically, nobody can be perfect like God; Romans 3:23 says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But if we think more in terms of imitation, then we’re more on track with what God is after. This is why Paul instructed the early believers to “imitate me, just as I imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1, NLT). Our life’s journey is about living as a reflection of Him, not about trying to get everything right.
Perfectionism will ruin your faith, your relationships and your life. If all you’re trying to do is not mess up and do everything exactly right, you’ll actually create more problems for yourself than if you accept that you’re an imperfect person living with other imperfect people in a fallen world. Focus your attention more on discovering the character, heart and ways of the One you’re supposed to be imitating than just trying to steer clear of the pitfalls and avoid messing up.
Mistakes will happen. Flaws will be present. That’s why His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) and there is forgiveness and promise of a fresh start. We won’t find our ideal self this side of Heaven, but we do have a perfect Savior who, for us, is what we can never be in and of ourselves. So we can take a deep breath and enjoy the journey.
— Katherine Singer
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