pride and perfectionism

i have more or less been a perfectionist since i exited the womb. honestly, i don't know why i'm this way. i don't really remember my parents teaching it to me. in fact, i seem to remember my parents at some point telling me, jokingly, that they wanted me to mess up once in awhile. they wanted me to do something mischievous, to take life a little less seriously.

because of my perfectionist tendencies, i didn't just get straight A's in school. i got A+'s. and when i was asked to complete a group project, no matter the type... I usually did most of the work myself, because i didn't trust other people to work as hard or as well as i knew i would.

as a perfectionist, i have always been very hesitant at letting people see my works-in-progress. i have always had issues letting people see things i am writing before i am done writing them. i have always had issues playing songs i have written for people before i have finished composing them. they have to fit my perception of perfection before i will share them.

additionally, i was a very people-pleasing sort of kid. i always wanted to make people happy, especially people i respected, and especially adults. you probably would have called me a teacher's pet. you might coo and think this was an admirable quality, but i am quite certain that my motives in people-pleasing were not altruistic. i wanted to be seen as perfect.

again, i don't know entirely where this whole idea came from. it doesn't seem to me as though everyone is this way. or maybe they are, but maybe their standards of perfection are not as high as mine. i don't really know.

i'm starting to realize how ugly this is. stephanie's idea of perfection. i think most of this attitude has been fueled by pride. somewhere along the way i figured out that i was good at some stuff, and then had to be the best at everything to validate my worth. second place was a disappointment.

and the thing is, it was all a lie. i wasn't perfect. i wasn't even noble. i cheated on some tests when i was in grade school. i used to spread rumors about people who were my friends just to create drama sometimes. i've lied countless times. i've gossiped, i've slandered. i've manipulated people into doing things i wanted them to do. i've used my way with words to belittle many people.

now, looking back, it seems as though it wasn't so much actual perfection that i was after, but the appearance of it. how pharisaical of me:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (Matthew 23:27-28).

though i am in Christ now, and do genuinely desire to be like Him and to serve Him, there is still a war within my being. though there is a true desire for holiness, there is also such a desire for sin. i think most of the sin i struggle with comes in some form of pride for me. oh, that most devious enemy! i measure others against my own abilities. i get royally annoyed when people don't treat me the way i think they should, or when they don't take my advice. much of the time i believe that everyone would be much better off if they were only more like me.

you may wonder why i am telling you all of this. well, i think the first reason would be so that you just know that i am wicked. i really am. more than i even know. i'm not trying to be humble. i am a sinner through and through. i am a great sinner in need of a great savior, and with joy i say i have found that Savior in the God-man, Jesus. when i set my heart to follow Him all the days of my life, He gave me His Spirit to live inside of me. Christ in me, the hope of glory. all this to say, if you see any good in me, any purity or holy resolve, it is only because of Him.

secondly, i would say that i've been learning a bit about humility lately. i was at small group the other night, and we were reading a chapter from a book called The Elijah Task. the chapter we read was called "The Discipline and Training of a Prophet," basically about how Old Testament prophets were trained. i'd like to share an excerpt with you:

An older prophet trained a younger prophet by humiliating him, crushing and breaking his pride, defeating him and revealing his smallness and incapability before God. Test after test was put upon the neophyte. The test was a success only if he failed to pass it! To learn that he could not succeed by his own soul's resources was the first building block and constant checkpoint of the prophet's study course. Whatever showed the prophet his inner rotten core and brought him to despair of conquering it was a success for it had taken away another "reason for confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:4).... Prophets in training make fools of themselves more times than they make sense.... [A prophet] becomes strongly deluded [in pride, after some minor successes] and, the next thing you know, he is utterly abased and humiliated before his fellow parishioners. God arranged it that way and, even if the prophet has abundant common sense, he cannot escape the process of humiliation essential to his training.

so basically, it is Your intention to humiliate me, that i would be broken. i look back on so many times in the past 11 years when i thought i had heard Your voice, and ended up falling flat on my face. You were trying to teach me this, weren't You? that i am to have no confidence in my flesh, in my own abilities to make things go right. how long it has taken me to even understand this a little! how thick-headed i am!

i pray You would help me to embrace humility, humiliation. i know without it, i will end up harming those that i intend to help, through pride and other ulterior motives. help me to boast in my weaknesses, as Paul did, that Your strength would be made known.

do what only You can do.