The Power of Imperfection

I don't know why we feel like we have to be perfect.

We're all aware of just how imperfect we are, so why do we feel like we have to put on that facade and pretend like we're more perfect than everyone else?


Maybe because we think if we act like it enough, we'll become it, or at least believe it ourselves.
Cause no one likes looking in the mirror and seeing all their flaws. It's overwhelming.
And we think it's our responsibility as humans to fix, fix, fix everything we find wrong with us.




As Jefferson Bethke said in Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,

"If grace is water, then the church should be an ocean
It's not a museum for good people, it's a hospital for the broken.
Which means I don't have to hide my failure, I don't have to hide my sin
Because it doesn't depend on me it depends on him."

Church is not a museum for the healthy, it's a hospital for the sick.

And if we could all just admit to each other that we're sick, how much more could we be healed?

If we could stop nervously glancing around the room during a convicting sermon, hoping that no one can tell what we're thinking, then maybe we could really look inside ourselves and let ourselves be healed. 

Maybe if we could all admit to being sick, our sickness wouldn't be so shameful knowing that countless people have the same disease, and countless people who have overcome it, can help us overcome. 

But, this doesn't only apply to churches. It applies to all humanity in general.

We know all the right words to say. 

We know how to make it look like we're perfect. 

And we do this because everyone else knows how to make it look like they're perfect too.

It's a vicious cycle.

We look around at all the people who supposedly have it together, and think we need to hide the mess inside ourselves. 

We stuff the dirty laundry under our beds without realizing that they're doing the same thing. 

But from where we stand, everyone else's rooms look clean and tidy. 

Everyone else looks healthy because we don't see the viruses attacking them on the inside.  

We all want to be more perfect than everyone else, for no other reason than pride. 

And we succeed at seeming more perfect, so everyone else around us feels like they need to reach the same standard. The standard that doesn't exist. The standard that was oppressed on us to by someone else. And someone else on them. And someone else on them. 

And the vicious cycle continues. 

Genuinity is a lost virtue. 

Transparency.

Honesty.

Our desire to look perfect is only more symptomatic of our imperfection.

And we're all guilty. We're all sick. 

We all put on masks to gain respect, power, praise, etc., all for the sake of pride--built on the foundation of a lie.

But transparency is beautiful.

The ability to be vulnerable is beautiful.

The humility to open ourselves up for criticism, mockery, judgement, or shame, is beautiful.

Because while we open ourselves up to those, we open ourselves up to healing and love also.

And then we give someone else the opportunity to be transparent, knowing that they're not alone. 

This is not a vicious cycle, but a renewing cycle. 

The more we are willing to be open and honest about our imperfections, the more we allow others to be. 

The moment we all decide to stop pretending we're perfect, is the moment we can truly love each other. 

And the cycle of renewal will continue, giving us the power to change the world. 

But it all starts within ourselves. 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Mark 2:17
Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Death and Taxes

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." 

-C.S. Lewis

Never has death seemed so real to me.
And still, it doesn't seem that real. 


I think it's so crazy that life can just stop.
Just cease.


Where heart beats, brain waves, and muscle movements once existed, now is a cold and lifeless corpse.


Where there once was a human being with a soul, now is just an uninhabited body.


Our bodies are amazing enough, but add life to them and they're completely incomprehensible. 
God takes our bodies and give them thoughts, and memories, and a spirit, and all these things that science can't explain. 

And we live. We're alive. We spend years and years trapped in this body when all at once 20, 40, 65, 87, 100 years are gone and the life in that body is no more. 


How can it be that a body so full of life, can cease to have life in it at all?


How can it be that a simple heart beat pumping blood to our organs is the determining factor for where our souls are living? 
Where our being, our soul, our self is, is determined by oxygen and brain activity. And heart beats. 


In a moment, every bit of unexplainable life can be gone and all that's left is the body that held it to this earth. 


We are not our bodies, and life is not only what we can see. 
We are the spirit and the soul that inhabits these bodies for the time being.




It's easy to kill a body. All that has to be done is stopping a heart. But can you kill the soul that makes the body alive? Can you diminish from existence the spirit that makes the body a person?


No.


So when all that's left is the body, abandoned and deserted, we can only conclude that the soul goes somewhere. 


And when you know where it's going, death doesn't seem so scary. 

The great compromise

It's funny how willing we are to compromise absolutely everything, for absolutely nothing.

Why?

Maybe it's the thrill.
Maybe it's the chance of it turning out differently than it has every other time.
Maybe we're just stupid.
Maybe we don't care.

Shouldn't we know better than to take a risk knowing the outcome?

Why do we run to edges of cliffs and jump, thinking maybe this time I'll fly?

Why do we walk down paths marked with signs that say danger and dead end?

We foolishly think that we're different. This time is different. We're strong enough, we're smart enough, we're dedicated enough.

But we're not.

We're human.

We're weak and searching for a source of strength.