YOU SHALL SOON ACHIEVE PERFECTION
Thus read the very insistent (though false) contents of my fortune cookie tonight. I shall never achieve perfection; receive is a much better word. As a Christian, when Christ returns ("soon, and very soon," as the song says) I shall be made perfect. I look forward to that day.
A friend asked me this afternoon what effect I think one of my long-term relationships has had on me. What a hard question to answer, in so many ways. Hard because listing all the ways this relationship has affected me would take a really long time. Hard because some of the effects are really difficult to explain. Hard because for questions like that anything less than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is a waste of time, and yet I like keeping what little I have of people's respect. Hard because some of the effects I have never discussed with anyone. Hard because while I understand a lot of it, I simply don't know the full answer. I stumbled through a semi-answer, and then settled on saying, "I know most of the effects, I just don't know what to do about it."
What do I do about it? That, to me, is the real question. Whatever effect my past and present relationships have had on me, and regardless how I learned my behaviors, habits and prejudices, the responsibility is mine, no one else's. Relationships are something I struggle with a lot (thus I think about them a lot and talk about them a lot). How do I unlearn the things I have learned? I am continually and repeatedly placed in the same kinds of situations in which I developed these habits in the first place, but now with my self-preserving negative recourses denied me (by myself, with great regret) and no obvious and appropriate solution, what am I to learn to replace them with?
I can trust God for a great many things, and I can give to him a great many things with ease. I consciously choose to trust that things are as God intends them to be for now, even the painful things – how could I believe otherwise? But here is why this particular thing scares me so much: God may not intend for this to go away. The idea of struggling like this for years or the rest of my life is unbelievably hard for me. On the other hand, in spite of anything, I cannot deny this: God's way is Right.
A friend asked me this afternoon what effect I think one of my long-term relationships has had on me. What a hard question to answer, in so many ways. Hard because listing all the ways this relationship has affected me would take a really long time. Hard because some of the effects are really difficult to explain. Hard because for questions like that anything less than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is a waste of time, and yet I like keeping what little I have of people's respect. Hard because some of the effects I have never discussed with anyone. Hard because while I understand a lot of it, I simply don't know the full answer. I stumbled through a semi-answer, and then settled on saying, "I know most of the effects, I just don't know what to do about it."
What do I do about it? That, to me, is the real question. Whatever effect my past and present relationships have had on me, and regardless how I learned my behaviors, habits and prejudices, the responsibility is mine, no one else's. Relationships are something I struggle with a lot (thus I think about them a lot and talk about them a lot). How do I unlearn the things I have learned? I am continually and repeatedly placed in the same kinds of situations in which I developed these habits in the first place, but now with my self-preserving negative recourses denied me (by myself, with great regret) and no obvious and appropriate solution, what am I to learn to replace them with?
I can trust God for a great many things, and I can give to him a great many things with ease. I consciously choose to trust that things are as God intends them to be for now, even the painful things – how could I believe otherwise? But here is why this particular thing scares me so much: God may not intend for this to go away. The idea of struggling like this for years or the rest of my life is unbelievably hard for me. On the other hand, in spite of anything, I cannot deny this: God's way is Right.
Psalm 145:17, 21
The Lord is righteous in all his ways,
and loving toward all he has made.
My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.
Labels: Contemplation, Relationships
Posted by treeinforest at 8:06 PM
1 Comments:
I'm glad we recieve perfection as opposed to achieve perfection. I could never achieve it myself. I can never deserve it myself. It is so entirely by His grace that I am humbled and blown away by the realization that, even when I screw up and thus testify to my very certain imperfection, His grace is always there for me, and it's krass and oh, so cool, that we will, upon Christ's return, recieve perfection because it is our creator's desire and not something we've earned.
(by the way, there's a tradition (supposedly (according to some of my friends)) involving fortune cookies where you're supposed to add the words "in bed" to the end of every fortune.... Whether you think it's worth applying or not is your decision, but it does make worthless fortune cookies somewhat more amusing....)
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