My entire life, I’ve made plans.
When things weren’t going my way, I’d make plans for the next day, the next step, the next stage of my life and told myself that everything would be perfect if I could just hold on until them. If I could just make it one more day, one more week, one more year in the same circumstance, I would be able to move on to my next plan and everything would magically fall into place.
Except nothing ever “magically” fell into place. Things didn’t even seem to fall into place despite my endless efforts.
I was bored in my hometown, where I’d spent eighteen years of my life, and when my senior year of high school finally came around, I wanted OUT. So I chose a school far, (well three and a half hours, but still far to me) far, away. I still wasn’t happy. I transferred to a school even farther away for my second year of college and, while the school was definitely the right choice for me, I still found myself unhappy and searching for happiness in everything.
I think the worst part for me is that my life isn’t even hard. I don’t feel like I have a right to complain- I have a wonderful family and great friends from a variety of places, I get good grades, I’m financially stable, I’m attending my dream school, and onward.
I feel like nothing “big” or “significant” has ever happened in my life to cause this feeling of unrest and unhappiness, but still, here I am: unhappy, searching, and exhausted.
Do you ever feel this way? I feel like we all have such plans for how our lives are supposed to go and are always looking to make our lives perfect. It can be a complete stab when things don’t go as we arduously plan.
I constantly envision myself having the perfect body, the perfect hair, the perfect wardrobe with all the right accessories; right down to the matching bag and shoes. I tell myself that once I’m that girl; the one who gets a perfect eight hours of sleep, wakes up early, works out, drinks some green stuff for breakfast, ends each semester with a perfect 4.0 while having a mani-pedi, her eyebrows done, and is just the right amount of tan, then I’ll be happy. It’s then that I’ll have my life together and everything will be perfect.
Perfect.
Nothing is ever going to be perfect.
Even if I keep up with having the glossy mani-pedi; even if I get eight hours of sleep, pass the exam, and drink green stuff for breakfast, something will always be lacking. It will never be enough. I will still come up short. I will never be filled or feel satisfied. I will always want more.
It’s during times like these, and I so wish that I ran to Him more often, that I realize just how much I need Jesus. How I honestly could not live, breathe, survive, even exist without Him.
Nothing in this world is ever going to be enough to quench the undeniable and pertinent thirst we have for our Savior.
We are absolutely drowning in our sin and imperfection. And sometimes I feel like the shore, the life preserver; the boat is so far off and so distant that it will never be able to reach me in time.
And sometimes I can’t even see any hope of being saved.
But then, I stop and I think. I pray, or I hear a favorite worship song, or a sermon really speaks to me in church, or God works through a good friend. A listening ear, a comforting touch, and, in that moment, I am reminded that I was never called to be perfect. I was called as I am.
"I was called to come before Him, dirty and stained with sin and imperfection and He loved me anyways." (See Isaiah 1:18)
God knew we couldn’t be perfect. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, He knew that perfection was not an attainable goal for His children so He sacrificed His Son in our place.
In Jesus, I have the perfection that I have been so longing for, and the worldy “perfection” that I’m chasing after will never even come close.
“But 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. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
So next time you’re struggling with shame, stress, and not feeling good, smart, or whatever enough; please let me encourage you to run to Jesus.
Run to Him with all your worry, anxiety, despair, hurt, and sorrow. Collapse at His feet, bruised and broken as you are.
Run to your heavenly father in prayer with confidence in Jesus’ perfection in our place rather than chasing after the perfection that the world tries to shove down our throats.
I’d rather run to Him instead anyways.
