The Prison of Perfection

Perfection is a prison. So many of us have listened to our pride as it has led us with the promise of what will happen if we focus on us. We have been captured by the allure of our own goodness. We have been mesmerized by the specter of our own accomplishments. We have been beguiled by the seduction of our own good deeds. There is worth to be found in our goodness, our accomplishments and our good deeds. But the worth is turned into a trail of crumbs leading us to the prison of perfection if the result is a focus on self. You will know it when you are in a prison of perfection not when your life is perfect but when you are more concerned with appearances than anything else. The prison of perfection that pride is the caretaker of does not concern itself with real perfection only the appearance of perfection. Jesus spoke of the “hypocrisy of the Pharisees” in Luke 12. Debbie had a brilliant comment that characterizes what happens when we end up in a prison of perfection. We “let our eyes get in the way of our ears.” To avoid the prison of perfection we must live with God’s vision. We could never do this expect that God teaches this and empowers this in our lives. Hab. 2:2 says, “And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain…” “Write the vision” conveys the idea that God has spoken and what He sees we can see if we will listen to what He says. Our ears play a much more important role than our eyes when it comes to adopting God’s vision. In fact, our eyes can be very distracting and deceiving. Our ears can mislead as well if they are not attuned to what God says. The only hope we have of attaining any kind of perfection is through Christ. Keep your focus on Him through a continuous diet of listening to what God says. In this way you will avoid the prison of perfection and raise the bar on your discipleship.