Tag Archives: performance

Between Grace and Perfection

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My parents did just about everything right. They read the Bible together every day, consumed a home-grown whole-foods diet, kept the house clean and the yard weeded, and if there was a squeaky door my dad fixed it within an hour. They kept cream-colored carpet clean for thirty years, while raising two children. Need I say more?

Things turned out right most of the time for my parents. Their kids turned out well (ask around if you don’t want to take my word for it), none of the fruit from their 40-plus fruit trees spoiled on the ground, and never was a penny wasted or a sock lost. We lived below the government-defined “poverty level” income my entire childhood, and rumor had it that one neighbor thought we were millionaires. My dad has always been an expert at making his money work for him, even if it meant a three-squares-of-toilet-paper limit and eating freezer-burned garden produce.

If anyone could make the claim that doing things “right” actually works, my parents could. They didn’t waste anything—not a drop of hot water, not a plate of food, not a moment of time. My parents liked their life and the way they lived it—at least most of the time. I observed them and assumed if I did everything “right” I would like myself, as well as my life. And for a while my experience affirmed this idea. Then it didn’t. When I discovered a seething dislike for myself, I was confused. Why was I perfectly miserable?

It turns out a performance-based value is no value at all.

With much effort—which involves releasing my grip more than trying hard—I have s l o w l y learned to like myself. The claws and flaws of perfectionism are still imprinted on me, but I practice living from a different space, acknowledging that growth is not about becoming better, so much as it is about healing. My sister shared an Instagram post with me that describes this well:

Healing is not becoming the best version of yourself. Healing is letting the worst version of yourself be loved. So many have turned healing into becoming this super perfect version of ourselves. That is bondage. That is anxiety waiting to happen. Healing is saying every single version of me deserves love. Deserves tenderness. Deserves grace. When we get to a place where we can see and empathize with every version of ourselves, even the version of ourselves we can sometimes be ashamed of, that’s when we know we are walking in a path of healing.

@somaticexperiencingint

Some days, I have both feet on that path. I get ugly with my kids and I embrace the ugly me. I forget something important, and I find a new way to handle it. Some days, I’m back on the perfectionism path, scrutinizing every move, finding fault everywhere; or feeling self-righteous (the alternative to self-loathing when value is performance-based).

Most days I’m hopping back and forth. I accept grace for losing my temper when a website loses all the information I entered, but swear under my breath when I find a dirty sock that didn’t make it in the wash with the rest of the load. I walk by the overflowing kitchen counter without a single shaming thought, but get panicky when I text a friend about a change in plans. I calmly pay the overdue penalty on a bill that got buried under piles of unopened mail, but flog myself for losing it with the kids while trying to leave the house for a school program.

One gift of imperfection is acceptance that sometimes I will still try to be perfect. Even this urge to perform is worthy of tenderness and grace. There is room for it within my wholeness and healing. I will keep dancing this dance in which both grace and perfectionism get time on the dance floor.

Is It Really Safe?, Part 1

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I have been in a funk. I have been dragged around by emotions I don’t understand until I feel like an empty shell and a lost cause. I have lots of questions and no answers. Confusion and discouragement pepper my journal pages:

– Somehow I got lost.
– Where am I? Where did I go?
– I feel like a failure. I feel condemned and alone and sad and afraid.
– I don’t know how to be. I don’t know who I am.
– I don’t matter. I am valuable only as I fulfill the roles I have been given to fulfill. I don’t enjoy my life. I don’t know how. I don’t have permission to. When I hear the words, “you do matter,” I think blah, blah, blah, that’s just a bunch of hogwash. Who are you? A fairy to grant me my dreams and wishes?
– “Be thankful. Smile. Be faithful.” Don’t feed me that crap. How can I love my life and hate it at the same time?
– Actually, I don’t think I hate my life. I think I hate myself.
– Surely there must be some relief. I don’t know how to be in this place.

Deep in my gut, my soul, my heart, I believe that my value is based on my performance. It is agonizing to perform poorly for weeks on end and be forced to face this monster. I have been wrestling the monster for years, and sometimes it gets easier. Right now it’s harder. As I wrestle and grieve and worry, God extends invitations.

Invited To Be

My brave husband, overwhelmed by the tearful shell of a wife he’s been living with, courageously asked what he could do to help me. I had no answer, so I took the question to God, and God said I need to be reminded of these things: everything is going to be ok. It’s ok to be broken and it’s ok to not know why. It’s ok to do the best I can and it’s ok for that to be small and basic. I don’t have to wallow, but I don’t have to fight either. I can just be. I can be grateful my daughters are relatively independent. I can be content with small things. I can learn to be safe with myself. I can praise God for being with me in this. I can be still. I can be imperfect. I can have a different capacity every day (I cannot express how frustrating this is for me!). I can read and listen to things that are affirming instead of challenging. I can be alone or I can reach out. I can have days in which my best feels more like my worst.

As I was driving downtown recently, a car passed me with these words big and bold across the rear windshield: “It’s ok to not be ok.” I took a deep breath. As the days pass, I keep circling back to these words and taking more deep breaths. It’s ok to not be ok. Discouragement and confusion does not make me unsuitable for life. When I feel tired and anxious, dialed up to ten, but seem only to have energy for emotional turmoil and none for the tasks of life: I can come and curl up in the arms of God, still and loved. I can trade lethargy and despair for permission to do less. I can admit my capacity is low. I can breathe deeply of love that is not earned. I can trust God’s strength instead of fearing my weakness. I can remember it’s ok to not be ok.

Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things [the things you worry you won’t have] shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33, NKJV) That is a big promise. My skeptical side wonders if God knows how many things I worry about. Skepticism aside, what exactly is the “kingdom of God”? What would it look like in my life? It seems Jesus wanted people to know, because He told many stories beginning with the words, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”
– Letting myself be found and celebrated (Parables of the lost sheep and lost coin)
– Letting myself be cultivated – soil for seed (Parable of the sower)
– Letting myself be imperfect (Parable of the wheat and tares)
– Letting myself be the least (Parable of the mustard seed)
– Letting myself be slow (Parable of the leaven)
– Letting myself be treasured (Parable of the hidden treasure)
– Letting myself be sought (Parable of the pearl of great price)
– Letting myself be gathered (Parable of the dragnet)

When I look back over the list, I see – as if for the first time – the phrase “letting myself be…” God is inviting me to be. No explanations, no defenses, no requirements. No “right” or “wrong” way to be. My experience is valid as it is. I am invited to be. Lord, maybe today is less about what I do and more about who I am, and maybe who I am isn’t so scary if You are with me.

Invited To Be Seen

In God’s presence there is a priceless gift added to the permission to be: an invitation to be seen. I am learning to let God see me. But in the process of letting Him see me, I also see myself, and this can be painful and scary. I don’t realize how much I am hiding until He comes to find me. I am hiding from pain, but I am also hiding from love. I am hiding from my feelings, for fear that really feeling them will render me unable to function. I am hiding from the people I love, because I don’t want to frighten or burden them, and even more because I don’t want to be rejected by them. I am hiding from myself, because my own anger against myself is frightful, and my assessment of myself is scathing.

All this hiding is exhausting. Being seen is terrifying. It seems all options are agony. I consider an invitation from God to think about what I want, and this takes my terror to a whole new level. Wanting something is vulnerable. Wanting reveals my inner self. Wanting is frivolous. Wanting is not safe. Wanting is an invitation to be invalidated. In my heart, wanting is a minefield. Yet clearly, hiding behind my duties is choking me, and so – tentatively – I consider my wants. I speak them even though I feel mocked by them. I want to feel good at something. I want to follow God. I want some time when no one needs me. I want to have good posture. Gently God invites me to consider not just my general wants, but what I want today. This is getting very personal… I want to sit by the fire in my new chair and read. I want to laugh. I don’t want to think about meals, cooking, or food planning and shopping. I want to enjoy my children. Phew! I survived. I feel vulnerable, but to my surprise, saying what I want did not wreck me.

I am seen, and I am still invited to be. This means the invitation to be was not imaginary, contrived, or based on my being – my existence – turning out “right.” I am truly invited to be me – not the better version of myself that I am always competing with and losing to. Here I am, sad and vulnerable me, seen and affirmed in my messy existence.

Brené Brown ends “The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto” with these words: “I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you. Truly deeply seeing you.” God holds sacred the gift of seeing me. I am safe, I am honored, I am cherished. Even when I’m not ok.

Obedience, Part 5 – Disobedience

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This is the last post of six on obedience. Below are links to the previous posts.

Obedience, Part 1 – Turning

Obedience, Part 2 – Agreeing or Trusting?

Obedience, Part 3 – What Precedes Obedience

Obedience, Part Unknown

Obedience, Part 4 – What Follows Obedience

Lest we be tempted to think this post is about those destined for eternal fire, let’s remember that disobedience is a universal experience. Everyone has disobeyed (and will continue disobeying) God. “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth… we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.” (1 John 1:8,10b NLT)

It’s like any relationship – sometimes we make loving and healthy choices, and sometimes we make defensive and hurtful choices. We are never going to grow out of this while we’re on sinful earth. We will always make mistakes, and we will always need to ask for forgiveness. We will inevitably turn toward God sometimes and away from Him other times.

At the risk of being black and white, let’s assume there are two senses in which we can talk about disobedience. The first sense is what I described above – the individual choices we make as we relate to God on a daily basis. The second sense would be that in which disobedience describes the sum of those choices, the consummation of what path we choose in life (acknowledging that our final state is not the result of adding up our deeds, but rather whether we entered into relationship with God).

God knows how all this works, and in the end He will make it known who is in relationship with Him, and who is not. I cannot pretend to truly understand, but I have some clues as to what disobedience might look like, which are best illustrated by sharing insights from writers who have insightfully described various aspects of relationship with God. By looking at relationship, we can understand also what it looks like to not be in relationship.

Challenged or Comfortable?

One clue suggesting disobedience is feeling comfortable: “free from vexation or doubt” (merriam-webster.com); feeling like you’re great, the world is great, and you can just relax and not think about difficult things. In her book Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans says, “Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable.” The presence of God is safe, but also awe-inspiring, humbling, and challenging. If you are feeling comfortable, or if everything is going your way, it may be a clue that you are not in His presence.

In his book The Reason for God, Timothy Keller talks about why he believes it’s important to allow the Bible to challenge us. I believe what he describes is true not only for the Bible, but for all the ways God reveals Himself to us and interacts with us: prayer, nature, the teaching of others, and so on. This is what he says:

In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you. For example, if a wife is not allowed to contradict her husband, they won’t have an intimate relationship. Remember the (two!) movies The Stepford Wives? The husbands of Stepford, Connecticut, decide to have their wives turned into robots who never cross the wills of their husbands. A Stepford wife was wonderfully compliant and beautiful, but no one would describe such a marriage as intimate or personal.

Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won’t! You’ll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination.

If God seems to always agree with us, or we always agree with Him – if we are feeling comfortable, in control, like we have things figured out – this is a clue that we are not in relationship and therefore not in obedience to God.

Submission or Performance?

Another clue that suggests disobedience is a focus is on behavior rather than submission. Behavior is a distraction from submission. Valuing God’s will above our own is the hardest continuous thing we will ever do, and in comparison it may be easy to put our efforts into being generous, patient, committed, or kind. But if our focus is on our performance and we are not daily coming up against God’s will and learning to let it be above our own, we are not walking in obedience.

In his book Mere Christianity – in the chapter titled “Nice People or New Men” – C.S. Lewis considers whether becoming nice is the main point of being a Christian. He sets forth a Christian character – Miss Bates – who is not nice, and a non-Christian character – Dick Firkin – who is nice. He then explores what they look like in terms of God’s kingdom.

The niceness, in fact, is God’s gift to Dick, not Dick’s gift to God. In the same way, God has allowed natural causes, working in a world spoiled by centuries of sin, to produce in Miss Bates the narrow mind and jangled nerves which account for most of her nastiness. He intends, in His own good time, to set that part of her right. But that is not, for God, the critical part of the business. It presents no difficulties. It is not what He is anxious about. What He is watching and waiting and working for is something that is not easy even for God, because, from the nature of the case, even He cannot produce it by a mere act of power. He is waiting and watching for it both in Miss Bates and in Dick Firkin. It is something they can freely give Him or freely refuse to Him. Will they, or will they not, turn to Him and thus fulfil the only purpose for which they were created?… The question whether the natures they offer or withhold are, at that moment, nice or nasty ones, is of secondary importance. God can see to that part of the problem.

Do not misunderstand me. Of course God regards a nasty nature as a bad and deplorable thing. And, of course, He regards a nice nature as a good thing – good like bread, or sunshine, or water. But these are the good things which He gives and we receive. He created Dick’s sound nerves and good digestion, and there is plenty more where they came from. It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion.

When we get distracted by performance, we’re not engaging in relationship with God. We are speaking in a language He doesn’t understand; coming to His banquet table with no appetite for what He has prepared.

Let’s imagine I am planning to purchase a car, and the advertisement says “CASH ONLY.” I arrive to purchase the vehicle with only a credit card in my wallet, and the seller has no way to process my card. We are unable to make the transaction. Similarly, when I show up hoping to interact with God and I present my performance, no transaction can occur. I must show up with my will; and when I hold my will out to God, a transaction occurs. Our relationship becomes real.

Conclusion

Pursuing comfort and performance lure me into disobedience. These clues are personal to me: comfort and productivity were the first two idols I identified in my life. Your clues may be different. Our enemy the devil is relentless in distracting us from our Creator and Savior, and in our weakness we are so easily confused. If you’re feeling brave, ask the Spirit to show you what your clues are.

Whatever our clues, they are a reminder that perhaps we have missed the Person who loves us and wants to engulf us in His presence. We are thinking of ourselves – distracted by what we have and what we want. It is in thinking of God that we finally come alive.

We usually begin the journey toward God thinking, “What do I have to do to get this or that from him?” but eventually we have to begin thinking, “What do I have to do to get him?” If you don’t make that transition, you will never actually meet the real God, but will only end up believing in some caricature version of him. – Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

I don’t want to waste my life serving a caricature of God. I want to know the real God. This occurs at great cost to self. But may I never forget that God wants to know the real me, and His cost to enter this relationship is infinitely greater.