I love to watch competitive sports, but shoot me now if I’m required to participate. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking video games, tennis, corn hole, or Tiddly-Winks. I refuse to expose my ineptitude. That kind of competition is not fun to me; it’s tortuous. Rather than competing, I’d much rather spend my time stuffing my face with cotton candy. Bottom line is fear of failure. This kind of fear stems from fear of what others may think of me if I mess up.  I get that. I’m far too concerned about looking good in someone else’s eyes. I confess it.

Jesus had much to say about living for the praises of others, and I fall into that trap far too easily. It’s unbelief which says I don’t trust God for my value, and I need others to affirm me through their approval. But what about the sense of failure I often experience when I fall short in my OWN eyes? When I tell myself internally that I have to “do it right”, and refuse to give myself the freedom to do anything less?

Haven’t you always hated it when a teacher, or parent, or mentor would say,  “Just do your best.” It feels very subjective, doesn’t it? Suppose you tried your best and the outcome still ended up being mediocre? A vanilla outcome may have been good enough for them, but I’ll suggest that “mediocre” felt like failure to you.

So, what is this internal drive we feel we need in order to be deemed successful in our OWN eyes? What is this desire really about? Sadly, it’s about our perceived value to others (and self) via our performance.  Our internal dialogue which says, “You have to do this right…. if you don’t, you’re ‘less than’. If you don’t perform well, you won’t be acceptable.” (I hated spelling bees at school.  Do they still have them? What a terrifying experience!)

When I became a Christian back in the late 70’s, I noticed there were lots of rules and regulations in the Bible. Of course, this was a panacea for me because I loved having a prescribed system of behavior …a clear path to run on… so that God would approve of me. Being a new convert, I became a passionate zealot. No more smoking, no more drinking, no more cursing, no more partying. At last! That’s it! I had found a way to impress God. Brownie points toward entering heaven at the front of the class! I could boast (to myself) that God loved me because I was outwardly demonstrating what I knew He valued. I had finally found a place where my right actions would promote approval and would increase God’s love for me, AND I could be more impressive to myself. A double reward. How could I lose?

But wait….enter the problem of grace. I learned that the Bible clearly speaks of the grace of the cross giving us right relationship with God, and not through any performance. This should be good news for all of us sinners. But, how does this work for those of us who inwardly insist to ourselves that we mustn’t fail? Granted, we make really loyal employees and dependable adults, but by our thoughts and actions, we unwittingly condemn the freedom of grace. Instead, we think and act as though we’re in a kind of partnership with God. We think, “I’m doing things right, therefore God will love me more, and that makes me feel good about myself.” This kind of thinking leaves no room for grace, and basically obliterates the meaning of the cross. It essentially says our positive performance before God dictates our identity, which makes us feel valued. All of this begs the question: If our value and identity are based on how well we do things, then why did Jesus die? The apostle Paul said, “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Gal. 2:21) When we convince ourselves we have to be the best at what we do, the smartest in our class, the most competent parent, the thinnest girl in the bunch, the fastest runner, the most capable problem-solver etc., we have made additional requirements for ourselves in order to feel acceptable. It steals the freedom of grace from us and replaces it with pressure to live up to our expected standards.

Of course, we love for others to be happy with us. It makes us feel valued when we can be impressive in some way. It’s always commendable to strive to do a job well. God is glorified in that kind of effort. However, all too often, we unwittingly seek to gain glory for our own self-satisfaction. The simple answer is… we fall into the trap of evaluating our worth by our ability to perform. We then follow the paradigm of believing our performance will yield a status of competence, which then yields some kind of false security about who we think we are. This progression just feeds the desire to perform even better, do even better, act even better, and it’s never enough. So, we keep trying to outdo ourselves. It’s a hamster wheel with no brakes. No grace and no room for failure…. just keep pedaling hard.

Hear this: Perfectionism destroys freedom. It refuses to accept grace. It strangles the life out of allowing ourselves any room to mess up. It attacks our conscience by condemning our failure to live up to OUR expectations. We convince ourselves that to remedy the problem of falling short, we have to try harder next time, only to set ourselves up for a personal defeat again. And if we think we succeed after giving it our all, it promotes a prideful sense of self-satisfaction that only serves to push us even harder to do better next time.

On the next occasion when you fret about how you’re doing in your own and other’s eyes (including God’s), pause to ask yourself, “Why don’t I believe the grace of the Cross is enough to make me acceptable? Do I think Jesus needs to suffer and die for me again because the first time didn’t take?” Or, “I believe Jesus needs my help so I’ll pitch in and make sure the job gets done correctly.”

Turn Around and realize that the hamster wheel of trying to attain perfection comes from unbelief. I’m not talking about unbelief as it pertains to salvation. I’m talking about not believing that we can trust God to give us our secure identity whether we perform well or not. When we believe we have to do it right in order to affirm our value, it’s an offense to God. Confess it for what it is, and let the Holy Spirit guide you to repent. We’re broken sinners who will struggle with this for a lifetime, but we can become more aware, and turn more quickly and more often from our perfectionist mindset to achieve what only Jesus was able to do. God’s complete acceptance of us came at a great price. When Christ uttered, “It is finished”, He meant it. No longer do we have to work for acceptance from God, others, and yes….ourselves.

Pray:

“Lord, help us to live like we believe Jesus’ sacrifice was totally sufficient. As we struggle to feel valued and acceptable, help us to embrace the total freedom of undeserved grace. Let it remind us of your great love which doesn’t depend on our feeble attempts at recognition or favor. Help us to turn and repent of our unbelief. Amen.”