The Law of the Flaw

(or "How a Perfectionistic Pastor Can Have Such a Cluttered Desk")

Hello, my name is Carl, and I'm a perfection addict.

I decided that's probably the way I should start out this article; with full disclosure. Because you see, the issue I want to reflect on in the following paragraphs is one I myself constantly run up against. It seems everything I tackle, whether it's writing a sermon, tilling the garden, crafting a woodworking project, parenting our children, or cleaning the bathroom sink, I end up over-thinking and worrying about the best way to do it in order to have the perfect outcome. Depending on the scope of the project and the importance it holds in my mind, I can literally freeze up over my indecision as to the best method, design, or approach to take. Sometimes to the extent that diving in and just doing it gets delayed or I never even begin. (Hence my cluttered desk.)

This is something I have been fairly self-aware about to a certain degree, but as I continue to grow in understanding, I'm beginning to see that it crops up in myriad ways every day that I am very likely unaware of. (And the structure of that last sentence really bothers me, but I am going to let it go.) (But not without first pointing it out so that you know that I know that it is imperfect.) HELP! See what I mean? This addiction is insidious!

The Law of the Flaw, as I'm dubbing it, says that nothing we ever do as humans is going to be perfect. And I'm slowly becoming OK with that, because I'm learning that it can have huge implications in our spiritual lives. We can become so frozen by the perceived need to be (or at least look) perfect, that we end up losing all kinds of opportunities to minister to others or to be ministered to ourselves. Perhaps we become unable to admit any shortcomings or sin in our lives because we fear what others would think if they knew we were imperfect. Or maybe we are frozen by the fact that we don't know enough, so we never give witness to the way of Jesus for fear we will be asked a question we can't answer! Or maybe we know we are imperfect so we never risk discussing with others things that we see in their lives that may be robbing them of the true joy God wants them to experience.

Can you begin to see how detrimental an inability to accept, embrace and even celebrate our imperfection can be? If I was never able to preach a sermon on something I knew I hadn't reached perfection on in my own life, I'd have to quit tomorrow! (Or should have quit 21 years ago before I preached my first!) The Law of the Flaw, however, says that our human imperfection is a gift! It is a gift that allows us to rely on others to do the things that we can't, admitting we need one another and therefore live in relationship with them. It is a gift that requires us to depend on God in a way we can't until we admit our imperfection. The apostle Paul writes in 2Co 12:9, after telling us he has a weakness that he begged God three times to remove, that "...he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

In a book I recently picked up titled Protect Us from All Anxiety: Meditations for the Depressed, William Burke shows the problem with perfectionism: "A perfectionist is ill, trying desperately to live an impossible life." He then offers us this prayer: "Lord, I hate the imperfect in me. I despise it. I want to hide it. Which means I hate, despise, and want to hide me. Yet you love me. Something's got to give."

May it be our unhealthy perceptions that give. And may they give way to a deep awareness of God's grace and love, and the gift that our imperfection actually is.

Pastor Carl