One of my mentors posted a quote on his blog from Thomas Merton. Alan Fadling spoke of his own perfectionism as a place of ongoing recovery. I've often used the words of Jack Miller to describe my own similar path – “My name is Dave and I am a recovering Pharisee.” Here's his quote:
“All in all, we suffer from the disease of perfectionism, which is the biggest obstacle to true perfection because it dries up the interior spirit, kills real faith, makes us concentrate on ourselves instead of Jesus, puts a “false Jesus” in our hearts instead of the real Jesus Who is a Savior. He is not waiting for us to become angels before He starts to love us. He loves us because we are imperfect, not because we are good but because He is good…. Most of them believe this only in theory. They are obsessed with their own miserable little “perfection” and “imperfection.”.” (Thomas Merton. The School of Charity. Selected and edited by Brother Patrick Hart. New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1990, p. 58.)
This disease, as Merton puts it, is insidious in it's permeation of my soul. It creates a pattern that leads me consistently away from Christ and His very real righteousness given to me. The pattern has looked something like this through the years:
First I come to Jesus, it is refreshing and new and I feel the healing down to my toes. It's as though my strong Father, the hero of my story has come along side me, placed His hand on my shoulder and said “It's going to be alright David, I Am here.” Those simple words crush the heart of stone and create a new heart of flesh that He takes in His hands and molds into the likeness of His own.
But the stoney heart soon attempts to retake its throne. It doesn't attempt to come against the power of heaven. That would be fruitless. Instead it seeks agreement in the new life, with a slight tweak. It says something like “Yes, this is good, a good place to be. I like this, I can work with this. Thank you Jesus, I'll take it from here. I just needed a clean slate, a spiritual bankruptcy so to speak. Now You've empowered me to live life. I have Your instruction booklet, I'll learn it. And look at these people around you, what are the spiritual ones doing? They go to church? I can go to church. They don't smoke? I can do that. They don't swear? I can stop doing that.”
And so it begins to slowly, one degree at a time, inch my heart back into itself. Instead of living under the grace that was freely given and freely received in the beginning, I begin to feel as though I've earned just a little bit of it. Instead of giving all the praise to Jesus and extolling Him alone for any victory in my life, I begin to say “Thanks for the help Jesus, I appreciate it. Call you later.”
But then I was struck by the words of Jack Miller who said “Cheer up, you're worse than you think.” And Martin Luther who said “We must learn to repent even of our good works.” Suddenly I realize that I have not had to give a reason to anyone for the joy that is in me because there has been no joy within me. The Gospel had become a list of tasks with no life in them. I was always striving to find the joy Jesus promised and always frustrated that it just kept feeling like work with no payoff. And so, the realization that my sin was even deeper than I thought was a blessing. I could go back to the beginning, back to the joy that I had at first, back to Jesus.
My Pharisee heart had to be crushed by the law the way the Pharisees were crushed by the law in Matthew 24. I needed to realize that the story of the two sons in Luke 15 was about me. It's not about the younger brother at all. The younger brother is only there to show the magnificent grace of the Father to the elder brother. The story is about the elder brother and whether or not he will come and join the party. Yes, Jesus was calling the Pharisees to join in the party and rejoice over their younger “prodigal” brothers.
When I read that story and found myself sympathizing with the elder brother and thinking that Jesus was wrong, I realized that something was incredibly out of whack in my heart. If Jesus was calling me to join the party, why was I sitting outside sulking? If Jesus was declaring me righteous enough to come in and celebrate and saying that “all that I have has always been yours” then why did I operate as though I were a poor broken sinner?
Today I'm seeing more and deeper healing in my heart. It's not a healing that leads me back into the Law but deeper into the Gospel. My life, more and more is being marked by God's grace. I see Him offering me all that is His. It's amazing.
I heard the words of this song really for the first time this morning:
No guilt of life, no fear of death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand
In His Grip,
Dave
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