Messy

Even though I'm a writer, math has always come easier to me. In high school I preferred it because there was always an exact answer (or set of answers...hehe math humor--I know, I know...I'm a dork). There was certainty and objectivity. If I got the right number, no one could tell me how I could’ve done better. I could get a grade of 100% and know that I earned it.

To be honest, sometimes I wish life worked like a math problem, because I hate it when life gets messy. I hate feeling like I could’ve done better or like everyone would’ve been better off if I had just gotten my part right. I wish there were perfect solutions and objectively right ways to do everything. I wish I never had to pick between two good options or two difficult outcomes. I wish there was some system to tell me I got it 92% right and show me where I messed up and how I could've gotten it 100% right. I don't like being confused about whether or not I made the right choice or how I could've done it better.

I’m not starting out this year the way I would’ve guessed or chosen. There are a lot of loose ends and unanswered questions I would really like to be done with. Messes I’ve made that I wish were cleaned up. Conversations I wish I had done better. People I’ve hurt that I wish I could start over with. I hate regret, and my year is starting off with quite a bit of it. This feeling that perfection was attainable but I missed the mark.

But you know what? That's a pretty unhealthy way to live! Because we're humans. We are undeniably IMPERFECT. God didn't create us to be soulless little perfection bots. We’re humans and we’re going to mess up sometimes. We have free will, impulses, and defense mechanisms that often cause us to hurt others or ourselves. Even with our best efforts, there will be moments, words, and choices we could have made better.

So I’m starting to embrace the idea that living a full life isn’t about obsessing over perfection. When we live that way, we either end up feeling like a failure—because perfection is (say it with me) IMPOSSIBLE or, if we make enough good choices in a row, we may ignorantly believe that we really are close to perfect. That we’re superior to all the flawed peasants in our lives, simply because we worked harder than they did.

Even if it was possible to avoid making any mistakes, even if we spent all our energy calculating possible outcomes, even if we could avoid all risks and only doing things we knew we’d succeed at…is that really living? Are we really living if we’re so obsessed with avoiding the pain and messes of real life that we steer ourselves straight into boredom?

On top of that, if you’re a Christian, trying to keep life from looking or feeling messy deprives us of a very valuable spiritual experience: refinement. When you refine gold, you melt it down and use acid to separate the impurities from the gold. Sometimes you end up with a gross-looking brown liquid as a byproduct. Similar to when life gets messy, refinement brings the worst part of the crude gold to the surface for all to see. But this is so that it can be removed.

I don’t like it when people see my mess or know about my mistakes. I don’t like having to admit that I hurt somebody. We all enjoy looking put together and in control of our lives, and I hate when that’s taken away from me. But as a follower of Jesus, I’m not supposed to live like I’m in control. I have to recognize my limits and my need for grace. My need for a savior. What looks like perfectionism is really just me hating any reminder of my limits. Any reminder that my righteousness comes from Jesus and not from me. One of my favorite songs (“Enough” by Antoine Bradford) says it well: “How could I ever learn to trust You if all my solid ground is me?”

Even though I feel like a mess in the season that I’m in, I’m embracing my mess as an opportunity to let God be the perfect one and release my death grip on perfection. I’ll leave you with the wise words of Mrs. Frizzle, which I try to live by as often as I can: “Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”