Why Waiting for "Perfect" is Ruining Your Life
Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in an endless cycle of wanting more? In this episode, OurChurch explores how the trap of perfectionism prevents us from stepping into our true purpose. Discover how shifting from "perfect" to "faithful" can recalibrate your life and help you find genuine community right here in Burleigh Heads.
Don't let the "Demand for Perfection" stop you today.
Whether you have "five loaves" or just "20 seconds of courage," God wants to use your faithfulness to do more than you can imagine.
-
But the concept we've been trying to explore with more is when is more enough? Because you seem to get more, but then it's never enough again, and then you want more, and it's like it's this continual thing that drives us. So when is more enough? So we're gonna recap in a little while the whole series, but I wanna say a few different things about that maybe you haven't thought about in regard to more.
What is it that drives us for more? What is the need that's in? Are we driven by fear? Are we driven by failure? Maybe it's a desire to be seen, to be seen, to be noticed to, to prove that I am someone in this world. And I guess if we're gonna be honest, most of us probably have a little bit of that going on at different times.
Or maybe some of it is because we have a sense that we are created for more. And so there is an unsettling there because we kinda know where we are, but we know, I feel like I should be more. And what's that all about? I never cease to be amazed at the way that God has worked with me since, uh, my first gave my life to Christ at 21 years of age.
Uh, I haven't been happy about this, and it still is exactly the same today. The Lord will just speak to me about something and he will say, I want you to do this, but he will never give me the whole picture. He won't give me a picture. He just gives me a little fragment here or a little nudge there or a little thought there.
He said, now I just want you to step out on the water. And that is terrifying. It's terrifying. What if I get it wrong? It's not just about me. It's terrifying. So you have to display. If you're gonna walk with the Lord and you're gonna do anything, you have to be willing to step out with what I call 20 seconds of courage.
And 20 seconds of courage is where you actually leap off the cliff and well, whatever happens, the Lord's gonna do it. And that's the way the Lord has taken me all through my life. And I realized that part of that is living by faith, and part of that is 'cause he wants me to be more, I have to be more than what I was last year, but in order to be more, I've gotta be put in a position that I need to be more.
So when God whispered me about this series more, it was just a soap devotion that I had written and I thought, oh, that's interesting. I didn't really know where to go, but then once I like brought the other communicators in and all their gifts and all their talents, it became very obvious that this is going a whole different direction to what I thought in the beginning.
But then now knowing what's been happening in you guys' lives and you guys online too, and the amount of people that's connected, this whole concept of more is very, very real for us to get a handle on. And I think it's part of God actually recalibrating us. That's our word for the recalibrating us back to what is important.
Recalibrating us back to our first love, helping us figure out what is the priority. Because since COVID, we haven't really. In the west, in the Western Church. I don't think we've really got back what we lost during COVID, which became, we became very self-focused, very introverted, very protective, very non, uh, non-risk.
And God's saying, no, no, it's time to kind of step right than that. So, so I could have taken that little devotion that I had and I could have played it safe and I could have just stuck it away and I could have sat on a shelf and I could have enjoyed it and that, but. We never have got to see what God has done through collectively moving through this together.
So God never gives us it. And I was reminded. I was reminded, again, it's faithfulness to God that counts. It's being faithful with what you've got in your hands, bringing who you are and what you can do, and then just giving it to the Lord and say, okay, you bless it, and let's just see where this goes.
Because God is not looking for perfection. What he's looking for is obedience and faithfulness. That's what he's looking for. He's been looking for it all along. First part of your Bible, the Jewish portion of your Bible, you'll see Israel was continually unfaithful, and so God is still looking for people that will be faithful to him.
Now, part of this, you'll notice this, uh, there's a set of values outside and we have 'em on our website. And this whole thing about bringing in the best that we've got is we've got something we've gotta watch out for. So we have a values called fun and Wow. Now the reason we call it wow is 'cause we used to use the word excellence, but anyone that knows anything about leadership in any culture excellence can really quickly morph into perfectionism.
And that hurts people. It damages people. 'cause the, the demand for perfection is an insatiable, more, you've gotta have more in this world so you can please people more. But God is saying, I, I don't want you to get caught up in that. I want you to learn to be more. Be more in me and let me do something through you.
So this demand for perfection is really, really, uh, it's a real problem for people. It was a problem for me when I was younger growing up. Uh, so I to the point where I did not want to step out and do anything different because I've seen what had happened to leaders that. Put their head out there and, and it didn't go so good.
So I just decided to day the turtle approach. You know, like, well, I don't really agree. Well that just pull your head in and just leave it alone. But then I realized that wasn't helpful either because then people just continually got hurt. So this perfection thing, what it does is it causes you, the demand for perfection, causes you to bury your gift, you bury it.
So some of you know that you can sing. Some of you know that you can play an instrument, but you're never gonna let us know 'cause you can't sing like Tom. You can't sing like Megan do you know? The point is you're not supposed to sing like them. You're supposed to sing like you. We already have a Tom and Megan, and if you play guitar, you're gonna watch Chris and Brett up here and there.
Oh, I could never play like that. Well, we don't want you to play like that. When we take the gift that's in you and play the way God's called you too, but you see what happens is you wanna let us know why? Because the demand for perfectionism and being perfect stops you from actually even stepping out and say, I can play a little bit your little gift, so therefore you bury it.
Some of you write songs that we will never hear because they're never perfect. If you write them, you can't play them good enough. They don't sound quite right. They're not perfect, so they stay in there and then you bury it and eventually after you're dead and gone, someone goes, oh, that was a pretty good song they had written there.
See we do this. This demand for perfectionism is really, really bad. Like my pastor didn't really help me when I was young. I came out of a rock and roll band, and my pastor, I thought, I'll write a song about my new faith. So I wrote this song. I thought it was a good song, and I said to the pastor, can I play this song because I feel like God's given me this song?
And he said, sure. And he was so lovely. He sat down there, I played the song, got through the whole thing, and I'm, he's, I'm just going, mm uh okay. And he said to me afterwards, this is brilliant. He says, he said, God did give you that song. I said, really? He said he didn't want it. It stinks.
That wasn't real helpful. A bit of truth in there. Maybe it wasn't such a great song, but you see, that's the reason why we bury it. 'cause we're frightened that someone's gonna reject us. Some of us should be up there serving in the kids and loving on our youth and things and the generations. But you, you, you go, I can't do that.
I can't do that. Why can't you do that? Because I don't understand kids. You were one. Of course you understand kids. But, but, but I, I don't have enough time. Well, when, when things slow down, well then I'll, then I'll, then I'll serve. Well. Good luck with that. When's anything gonna slow down? You have to learn how to, to bring your gift to play in every season and every area of life.
And yeah, it's different at different times. And this it, and same thing goes on with, with regards to giving. This has been a real big one. I've had so many guys over the years. They go, I listen pastor, I'd really love to give and I know I should give, but I've looked at how much I give. It's, it's just a little bit, you got so much debt round here.
So much debt. But listen, I'm about to break through here. And when I do, I'll have my millions and I'm gonna pay off your building and then we're gonna do another campus. And it's amazing. I said, that is really good, but how about just give a little bit now. Oh no, no, no. It's not quite good enough. Now I gotta wait till I get, till I get the whole lot and then it's amazing.
Then they get, they make, I watch 'em grow and then they make all this money and then I know that they're making all this money and then they go, Hey Pastor, I think the Lord is leading me to another church. You mean a church where the pastor doesn't know that you have the money now?
And the reason why they get stuck in there is because if you don't learn how to give in the little that you've got, you can never give. When God starts to make it bigger, it's a real trap. It's this thing where, oh, it's gotta be perfect beforehand. God just wants us to bring who we are, where we are, and with what we have right now.
That's all he's asking. It's all he is asking for us, not perfection. Please don't wait for perfection. You will never serve, you will never give, you will never do anything, and you will die frustrated at the end of your life because you missed every opportunity to be more and to step out because you had to wait for everything to be perfect.
We all do this. Hey, looking for someone. I'm no good at that. No, I'm no good at that. Have you done it before? No, no, but I'm no good at it. How do you know you're no good at it? Nobody. Everybody's no good at it at the start. But these are the excuses. We're gonna use that when you fall for that demand for perfectionism.
Hey, someone said to me once, he said, he said, I dunno how you do that cleaning. He said, cleaning's not my gift.
Cleaning's not your gift. Yeah. Now cleaning's not my gift. I can preach, I can teach, but cleaning's not my gift. I, I, I must admit, I was a little bit naughty. I was a bit naughty. I'll confess now as since as we're in the room together, he said, cleaning's not my gift. Pastor. Hmm. Is laziness girl gift. And he looked at me, he went, I don't do anything.
It is your gift. You have a very good gift there. You'll keep working on that. This trap, but it's, it's for, it's in everything. You know? Like what? What happens when you're outta shape? You're gonna say, I'm gonna get in safe shape. So what do you do? You put together a program that grant Kenny Ironman couldn't do in a week, and you are gonna do that thing and you're gonna make that thing happen.
And then you wake up in the morning, it's running, oh, it's too wet today. And then it's too dry and the next day and it's too dark, and then it's too light. And before you know, it programs out the door. And then what do you do? You go, ah, well. I was gonna tie that to my new diet too. But my new diet, I've got it in mind that diary and I got this, this, this, this, and I'm gonna eat that.
And then you come in here and then someone goes, Hey, you want a cookie? And then you eat the cookie and you go, oh, what the heck? Gimme a burger, fries and a coke. 'cause we're able to go with it. It's what happens. We just kind of like, if we can't get the perfection, is that you laughing eat.
Did you say that about me? Wait till we get home
like it. Um, what I'm saying to you is this, this demand for perfection is in us everywhere. And there's, there's a bad one for young ones today, and this is the one I, I'm probably gonna upset some people here. This whole thing of, you know, I just, I can't work. I can't work full time. I'm too tired. I gotta have a purple day.
What the heck is that? If I had a purple day, it was 'cause dad beat me. No, it wasn't like that. You know I gotta have a purple day. I, you know what I got? I gotta stop everything, pastora. I'm really stressed. I've gotta stop everything because I need to, I need to conserve my energy. You can't conserve your energy.
The point of energy is you only get more energy if you expel energy. So if you stop doing everything, you don't have any energy. And if you don't believe me about this, go and talk to someone that's widowed whose spouse retired and did nothing, and two years later was dead. That's what happens. There is some stuff out there at a high highly humanitarian era that's actually really destructive.
And I, and I wanna burst your bubble, but go right back to Genesis. How many days does it say we should work? 6, 6, 1 day off. What do we work now? Four, three days off. Maybe that's why we, we've got too much time on our hands. That's what's going on. We're too lazy. But now I'm too tired. It's like there's so much going wrong here.
If you wanna flip that round, God's saying just take one day off. That's all you need. That's all you need to recover. Awesome. True. What God is after is, is the discipline of duty with him. That's all he wants us to do. He just wants us to love him with the little bit that we've got. And it doesn't have to be perfect.
He can make it perfect. You bring it to him. Now, lemme give you a story 'cause I want, you need to have something outta the scriptures. John, chapter six. And you see this working beautifully. Yeah, Jesus is in there. Um, in, in an area where always, and there's people around everywhere. There's a big crowd, big crowd's turned up.
And so Jesus, uh, sees the big crowd and says 5,000 men. So it's probably about eight or 9,000 wa come camp womens and children. And so anyway, he says, this is a great opportunity. Teach my disciples and to see how these disciples are going. So this is what he do is he goes across, he goes, Hey, Philip.
Philip, where shall I buy some bread to give these people eat? He only asked this. It says to test him for, he already had in mind what he was gonna do. Philip answered, it would take more than a half a year's wages to buy enough bread to give anyone one bite. So Philip's done no faith there. If he can't get the perfect scenario, we're not even gonna start.
So let's go on a bit more then another disciple turns up Andrew. Simon's Peter's brother. He goes, well, here we go. I found this boy with five loaves barley fish, two small fish. How far will they go? That's not gonna be much, is it? Tanks Andrews down. No faith in Andrew. Isn't it interesting? There's no book in the Bible inspired by the Holy Spirit, by Philip or Andrew.
Apparently they didn't have anything that was worth being listened to. But Jesus goes on. He goes, I think Jesus must have gone, oh, love of God, love of God. How long do I have to stay with these guys? You still don't get it. There's no faith in you. Sit, sit 'em down, put 'em on the grass and we'll feed 'em there.
And he takes the loaves and he takes the, he takes the loaves and the fish, and then he prays, and then he distributes. And those who were all seated down had just a bite. No, they had as much as they wanted, they all got filled up. This is amazing. He did the same with the fish, pulling stuff outta nowhere.
What is going on here and at the end of it, so they gathered them up and there was 12 baskets left over. There is so much going on in this. So massive. Think about this. Just try now. We can't. No one can use their imagination anymore 'cause we just stay on devices all that long. You need to get off 'em so you can use your imagination.
Let's just imagine that we are here and you are the crowd that's just come in, right? And Jesus just spoke to you. Hey listen, go. We need to get some food. We are gonna get some food. And Philip's going, no, I can't even get anything anywhere. He's gonna do this. And what about you Andrew? Oh, a little boy.
Think, oh, okay. The little boy has got his little lunchbox. He's got his nice box and he's, Andrew must have been running around going, Hey listen, uh, we need some food. Has anyone got any food? Has anyone got anything? Anyone got some Uncle Toby's music bars? 'cause we'll take those. We're so desperate here.
This is such a big crowd. Two minute noodles. Have you got that? That would be fabulous. So the little boy would've been listening to them trying to find this and maybe the little boy said to Andrew, said, say, who are we gonna feed all of this lot? Hmm. Now, if I was that little boy with my lunchbox, which I am, I would've worked in here and gone, how many are we gonna feed?
This is not gonna do any good. I'll just keep this to myself. But he doesn't. He looks inside and he goes, what have I got An apple? No, that didn't go so well, Fred. Maybe we won't give them that. We've got some fish. The fish that John West rejects, but you are welcome to have them and some bread. Think about this.
That little boy was confronted with the demand for perfection. There's a massive crowd we've gotta feed, and that's all I've got. He could have looked at that and just gone, oh, forget that there's nothing, I can't help. There's not, my little gift is not worth anything. And just stuck a bag, kept it to himself.
But instead, he must have said to Andrew, Hey Andrew, listen, I got, this i's not that much, but I don't know about you, but I've, I've heard some pretty neat things about this Jesus, and maybe he can do something with my little bit. So if Jesus wants it. It is his. You see the difference? It's his amazing. He was not held back by the demand for perfection, and at the end there's 12 baskets.
Why 12 baskets? That's a silly number, isn't it? These are Jewish people. They understood right back. Right back in the wilderness, thousands of years earlier, God gave them bread from heaven. Jesus has turned up as bread from heaven. Takes a little bit from a little boy, and he's now feeding them again, and I think he was making a statement.
He said, here's 12 baskets of bread. Take 'em back to the leaders of your drive and say, remember, amazing. Here's the other part that I often think about what would've happened. If he would've kept his lunchbox,
would the crowd have gone home empty? Does God limit himself to us human beings participating with him in order to reveal himself? Oh, it's amazing. And what's God wanting from you? And I just love me with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, just through that. Just love me with everything you've got.
And I've given you a simple mechanism for that. Well, not me, pastor Wayne did soap devotions. You just do soap every day. Sit at Jesus' feet, listen, take it, and there are people that you need to feed out of what's coming outta your devotions. Then love your neighbor outta that place of health. Go love on 'em the way that Jesus loved us.
Then you just pick up a towel. These are all just the basic frameworks of who we are as a church and you serve. Bring your presence, who you are, the little bit that you've got, like the little boy, the little bit that may just feed thousands, but if you don't invest it, if you don't give it to him, it's not going anywhere.
There plenty of areas to serve everywhere. It doesn't have to be up in the kids or the youth or the production or things like that. You've got people that you're building relationships that don't know Christ. Living mission. That's what we do. Start your own little intentional missional village. Gather a few of 'em together.
Teach them how to read the scripts. Just teach 'em how to love God for themselves. How to gain and maintain a relationship. Intentional mission of villages. Only work if you have unchurched people around. That's the dynamic. That's what they were for, but there's plenty of places. So God is after our obedience and our faithfulness so that we can be more and he can use us for more.
Because when you hand you a little bit, he blesses he use it. Can you imagine that little boy for the rest of his life? He's gonna be talking to people About the day that I brought my lunch and thousands of people got fed. Thousands not just to buy, he fed them thousands out of this and then 12 baskets to take away too.
And I just want you to know that was me, but was it me or was it God?