God loves it that we need Him. It is never His intent for us to be
self-sufficient. He enables us to accept our own frailty, and to learn to trust
him. Our Heavenly Father doesn’t want us to strive to be perfect. He alone is
perfect and He alone does perfect work in us. Most importantly, God’s perfect
work is not concerned with our performance, but with our freedom. His perfect
work is in forgiving us, and helping us become able to forgive others who are
seemingly unforgiveable. He does a
perfect work of loving us and empowering us to love ourselves and others.
I spent many years trying to learn to behave. I was trying to
perform up to a perfect standard. I thought that meant that I should complete
many charitable tasks, and complete them all to the best of my ability. I believed
I should strive for perfection in everything. I believed that I should take
part in every good thing that came along; volunteer work, bake sales, music
boosters, ticket sales, church choir, cleaning things that didn’t need to be
cleaned, endless committees, extra meetings, improvement classes, collections for causes, and recovery service work. All of that was exhausting. Jesus Himself didn’t do
every good work that came along. He was driven by the motive of love, not pride
in performance.
This truth brings freedom and joy, but it is not as easy as
it should be. I am stuck in the mentality that I should earn my way, I should
pay my dues, I should set a good example, I should always look like I’m working hard. It has been really odd to discover that
those beliefs are not what is important to God. Rest is part of God’s plan, and
love is always His main purpose. Love. That’s it, but not my way of loving. His way means I can’t do it without Him. If I
fail, I start again. He actually believes in me just as I am. Now that’s love.
