Books, blog posts and speakers tell us we can be perfect, we can have it all. Perfection is within our reach if we just do this or that.
We feel enormous pressure to be perfect. We need to have the perfect slim, fit body. We need to be have a perfectly successful and satisfying career. We need to be perfectly gracious and kind to others.
All the time.
Because we don’t measure up to this perfect standard, we believe the lie that we aren’t enough.
Counselor and life coach Holley Gerth examines this topic in her book, You’re Already Amazing. In her study, Holley found that even our definition of perfect is skewed.
“The biblical definition of perfect is really different than how we tend to think about it in our culture….It’s actually closer to the word completion.”
Biblical perfection isn’t about flawlessness, it’s about wholeness. It’s about becoming all we were created by God to be. This is what God offers us through Christ. It’s not that we don’t have things to work on, because we do. But, we can trust that he’s given us everything we need and he’s given us all we need to fulfill his plans and purposes.
We have deep heart needs to be filled with Christ. We can feel guilty expressing those needs when we look around us at the material possessions and security we have. Holley emphasizes the fact that nothing external can satisfy what’s internal.
“At the end of the day we know we still need something more. I think that’s a gift that God has given us. There’s a part of us that refuses to be satisfied with anything less than his best for us.”
Holley also explores our obsession with the “it girl” and the lies we believe on the inside in her chat with Susie.
Key Scriptures: Proverbs 19:21, Psalm 29:1-2, John 15:3
