Perfection Versus Good Enough

This week, I am particularly working on picking my battles when it comes to my overwhelming compulsion to be a perfectionist. First of all, perfectionism doesn’t exist. All I can do, in the end, is my best. In addition, my best is further actually qualified by the parameters of the current task, the deadline I face, my current state of health, etc. Finally, I often work too hard at being better in areas that are good enough, thereby leaving areas in my life that could actually use more effort dangling in the wind.
The most important point about perfectionism, however, is that no matter how good I am at anything, I don’t have to be in order to achieve the most important thing of all–the mercy of God. God gives me salvation through the grace of my faith in Jesus, whether I am perfect at the latest thing I am working on or not.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not completely off the hook. Because of my acceptance of God’s love, I have become, as Paul tells us, “a new creation.” I want to do what is good and right and loving, extending the grace that has been offered me to others as well.
So, if I am going to worry about perfection in anything, it should be in my walk outside the life of sin. Being dead to sin, I should wake up each day trying to be perfect in Christ, forgiving and loving others and myself when I stumble, being open in my communication with God, from whom there is no secrets, so that I might be forgiven my mistakes and start the next day anew, His mercies surrounding me to help me do better this next day I have been given.
And I don’t exceed in anything that is truly important to God if I get caught up in the day-to-day spiral of trying to bring to perfection that which only requires good enough, especially when love should truly be the greatest goal of all.