Trying for spiritual perfectionism has derailed me more times than I can even count.
For so much of my life I had the very misguided and distorted view that God demands perfection. So each and every time I would try to approach God, that’s what I aimed for, perfection. And predictably each time I would fail. Fail again. And again. I’d get so frustrated and distraught that each time I’d just give up. That was a recurring pattern throughout my life.
I also can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say that they’re afraid too, afraid that they’ve upset God regardless of the religious or spiritual tradition they follow. Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Jews. I’ve seen the same unhealthy, obsessive fear I had.
What I understand now is that I’m not a perfect person, so I literally can’t be perfect. Nobody else is either. Anybody, and I do mean anybody, who tries to give you the impression that they’re perfect in the way they approach God is one of two things, a liar or deluded. There have been countless cases of both throughout history.
The goal of spiritual perfectionism and performance always backfires. At least for me it did. If God truly knows all hearts, and knows mine, then He knows I tried.
The time I wasted.
When I think about how much of my life I’ve spent worrying about what people thought of me, the people who were never going to accept me anyway, it makes me sad. So much of my life utterly wasted.
So much time also wasted worrying whether God loved me or whether He was going to send me to hell. What an utterly twisted, distorted, and completely transactional view of God I had. So much time wasted thinking I could control things beyond my control. Thinking I could make God love me.
All that time wasted. All that grief and sadness and fear. Once time is gone, it’s gone forever, like words spoken in anger. Once they’re spoken, there is no withdrawing them.
What that transactional God actually was and did.
That transactional view of God, the belief that as long as I did everything perfectly, God would love me, I now realize was deeply unhealthy and misinformed/misguided. Because the very second I inevitably “sinned” in thought, word, or deed, whether by commission or omission, that love was immediately withdrawn.
This is just another thread of the same tapestry, the same fear and shame that fed my alcoholism and addiction. I remember a therapist I went to many years ago telling me that he’s never worked with an addicted client who wasn’t on a “spiritual journey” and that when I finally healed, I would finally have a healthy view of God.
The kind of transactional relationship I used to believe about God is unhealthy in human relationships and it’s unhealthy spiritually. It’s a repeated spiritual whiplash… now God loves me, now He doesn’t. Now He does, now He doesn’t.
What I want to do with whatever time I have left
With whatever time I have left, even if it’s just one more breath, I want to spend it unafraid and not worried. I want my wife, my sons, and my grandkids to know I love them beyond the capability of language to convey. I understand now that God does love me, even with or despite my inability to be perfect. So do my wife, sons, and grandkids.
That’s what I lean on now… LOVE.
~Buck
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