PERFECTIONISM WAS A LIE

THE TRUTH – YOU ARE PERFECT

I don’t know about you, but for me lots of my working out my salvation with trembling, has happened when the Holy Spirit has shone a light on a lie or deception I had believed, as truth. Both had limited my relationship with the Trinity, as well as hindered me from seeing the truth of the fullness of my identity, as He created me and defines me.

I was listening to someone else give their testimony and talk about always striving for perfectionism. I thought how awful…then like a brick it hit me. I had been burnt out not just due to trauma I had carried, but because of the lie I had believed. I thought that, if everything was perfect and met the bar of expectation then I would protect myself from accusation, condemnation and criticism. I had been running and striving. What a sad and painful reality. I felt so discombobulated. What a realisation!

Wrapped in a blanket

I knelt on the floor with a soft blanket wrapped around me and my head on a velvety soft pillow. This was my way of surrendering and inviting the Holy Spirit, who had shown himself to me previously as a horse named Comfort.

Holy Spirit came again as a horse – slowly, sensitively, to support, hold and initially just to sit with me, in it, just recognising it and helping me to be accepting of it. And after a letting go where He drew the pain onto Himself, I was transitioned softly to healing.

I felt like I was carrying a bucket of tears. I looked at him, I observed him. He looked malnourished and had bleeding hooves from walking over rough terrain. The revelation sunk in that he had walked every step with me! Never left me, and never forsaken me.

Tears captured in a bucket

He began to drink from the bucket of tears. His coat was shabby, patchy and unkempt.  As he drank I could feel him, soothing my heart, licking my wounds and anaesthetising them. The compassion was palpable.

I knew he had never left me. I knew he was showing me signs of distress. Showing me that he had felt every wound, every step, all the exhaustion that had been endured by being driven by the beast of perfectionism. I could feel the cry of His heart, 

“DO NOT GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT”.

How grieved He was at the deception that steals from us.

He showed me that perfectionism was a beast out of the darkness, a shadow that chases people down. A wild beast and heavy presence: always threatening, always looming, driving performance and action.

Its goal: To keep us out of peace and REST.

Perfectionism isn’t a goal.

Perfectionism is a driver.

Perfectionism is a taskmaster, who keeps us on the run.

By comparison, IN REST we are centered IN the TRINITY, surrounded and enveloped and in COMPLETE UNION with, Peace, Love, Acceptance and Comfort. Held, being, stillness, communion.

Perfectionism deludes us, we are on the run, the need to be constantly moving. We are an escaped slave avoiding re-capture. We are desperately trying to work to keep our free-dom.

It keeps us as a fugitive with no home, just surviving and striving and never feeling satisfaction.

And now I can see it for what it is, a chariot driven by the taskmaster named ‘be perfect’ pulled by wild horses, while the driver discharges his whips. On the whips are engraved; try harder, be better, work smarter, do more, go again, improve.  And when you hit the floor, it adds failure.

On the run it is impossible to see THE TRUTH, we are sitting under A DECEPTION. In stillness all becomes clear.

“My people have been driven by a lie. My people have been driven by a liar.”

“And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.”John 8.32 AMP

The TRUTH that this had hidden all along was this,

I am IN Love

I am surrounded by Love

I am safe

I am Loved

I am accepted

I am enough

I am in complete union

I am PERFECT already.

The Holy Spirit approached me again,

He is beautiful

He is whole

He is healthy

He is satisfied

He is replenished

He is called PERFECT.

PERFECT is who he is.

Perfect is who we are

Perfect is how we are seen

Perfect is how we are enjoyed.

“DO NOT GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT”

“YOU ARE PERFECT”

For each of us individually but as Church …

Have we been ‘a subject’ of the taskmaster shouting, “Be Perfect’?”

Note to God

Search my heart and Know me  …

Psalm 139:23-24 The Passion Translation

God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart.

Examine me through and through;

find out everything that may be hidden within me.

Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares.

See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on,

and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting way—

the path that brings me back to you.

Every part of you is so beautiful, my darling. Perfect is your beauty, without flaw within".  Song of Songs 4.7 The Passion Translation

How we can wrestle with receiving the TRUTH. Jesus is THE TRUTH and has set us free. His Spirit is alive within us exposing the lies of the enemy.

Let’s take hold of every TRUTH and agree with all He says we are.