From The Vine

The Word for Today With Bob Gass
Saturday, 11th February 2006

Shattering The "perfection Myth"

In Christ...we find out who we are and what we are living for.
Ephesians 1:11 TM

Sarah Ban Breathnach says: "Perfectionism has many aliases. Getting it right...fixing it...revising it...tinkering...having high standards. However, it has really nothing to do with [those] things. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It's...an obsessive debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck...a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us nothing we do will ever be good enough."

The media and the entertainment industry spend millions dailybombarding you with impossible images of airbrushed perfection. They make you think you should be thinner, smarter, better - anything other than who God made you to be. Looking around, all you see are people who seem happier, wiser and richer than you. It's like they know the secret and you don't.

Do you realise that by constantly putting yourself down, you're insulting your Maker? God's Word says you are "fearfully and wonderfully made" ( Psalm 139:14 NKJV). In His eyes you're "just right" because He never makes anything that isn't. God made you for a special purpose. Paul says it's in Christ that "we find out who we are and what we are living for." So if you're struggling in the endless quest for perfection, make this your prayer: "Father, You are my Maker, my Sustainer, my Rewarder. You're also the Lover of my Soul. In spite of my limitations and struggles I thank You for the work You've done, and continue to do in me. Help me to honour You by loving and accepting myself the way You do. In Jesus' Name, Amen."