Raise your hand if you struggle with perfectionism. My hand is very high. I think I have definitely gotten better as I have gotten older, but it can definitely rear its ugly head sometimes. The funny thing about wanting to always do things right and not make a mistake is it really robs you of having opportunities for growth. When I was teaching school, there was a phrase tossed around in professional development quite a bit. It was probletunity. The perfectionist side of me very much disliked that phrase. An opportunity is something you can decide if you want to pursue. A problem is something that is hindering your growth and needs to be solved. And in my thinking at the time, if I was doing things the “right” way, I probably would not have a problem to begin with. So I was not amused at the combining of the words. I felt it was something made up to make me feel better about my mistakes.
What I finally came to understand is that entering the teaching field or starting anything new, thinking you are going to do it correctly from the beginning is really arrogance. And as we know, arrogance is often used to cover insecurity. I would never have called myself arrogant, but when you drill down to it, that is what it was. How could I enter the teaching field and think I had all the answers? I didn’t. I did have a lot of opportunities for growth. Instead of beating myself up for my mistakes, I learned to reflect. What did I learn from this? What will I do next time? How do I need to think about this differently? With those questions, I became a much better teacher. I could also pass that mindset on to my students. I would ask them what have you learned from this experience? What will you do differently next time?
I think this mindset can be applied to our spiritual lives as well. It is really crazy to think that we should have all the answers or that we know God so completely that we don’t make mistakes in our growth with Him. My grandmother loved Jesus with her whole heart. She loved to read the Bible and pray for her family and friends. She was a true prayer warrior. She lived to ninety-six and honestly she was not entirely happy about that. She wanted to leave this earth much earlier than ninety-six because she desperately wanted to go to heaven and be with Jesus. As my grandfather passed away and then all of her siblings and many of her friends, her impatience grew. But she would always go back and seek the Lord. Then she would tell us, her family, that she felt like God had told her why she was still here and who she should be praying for and ministering to. Even as her years advanced, she knew she still had things to discover about the Lord and opportunities to grow in Him.
Romans 5:18-21(Msg) says, “Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong: one man said yes to God and put many in the right. All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life – a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.”
Paul in this passage is describing that when Adam fell from grace because of sin God’s people were then required to live under the law. All that showed is that the law didn’t work. So Jesus came to the Earth, and when He died for our sins, we were then put back under grace. So we now live under abundant grace. Paul goes on to say in Romans chapter 6 that just because we have grace does not mean that we have license to sin. We are God’s people, and we should not sin. But if we do, there is grace. God hates sin because it separates us from Him. He loves us so much and wants to be close to us. Sin serves as a barrier between us and Him. However, this does not mean He is scared of our mistakes. When we make a mistake or sin, there is grace and opportunity to grow closer to Him.
Let’s think about this. What if that annoying person or extra critical boss at work is an opportunity to grow in grace with people? What if the frustration or fear with finances is an opportunity to grow in trust with God? What if that relationship problem with a friend is an opportunity to learn how to hear from God in how to pray for that person? What if your children’s mistakes are an opportunity to help them grow as a person? What if the things we look at as problems or obstacles in our lives are all an opportunity to understand a different side of God?
The next time you come up against a problem or there is a sin that you are struggling with, ask the Lord what am I supposed to be learning here? Is there a place in my life I am filling with things other than you? What provision is here for this problem? Is there another part of you, God, that you want to reveal to me? The Lord wants us to understand Him and live an abundant life with Him more than we often want it. He is always faithful to hear our prayers and answer us. We just have to have an open heart to listen. He loves us more than we can possibly understand. He has a desire for a deep and full relationship with us. He can use any circumstance to bring us closer to Him if we let Him. He is always for us, never against us.
For more on the topic of opportunity, visit these posts.
Doors of Opportunity https://www.rootedunrooted.com/blog/doors-of-opportunity
Parenting Burnout and the Opportunity to Thrive https://www.ashleyolivine.com/parenting-burnout/
Gifted Kid Burnout and the Opportunity to Thrive https://www.louvaria.com/gifted-kid-burnout/
Sleep and Weight Loss: The Big Opportunity https://www.epigenwellness.com/sleep-and-weight-loss/