Perfect vs. Imperfect

renewchurchBlog

– by Myriam Fugere

Everything is messy!! Clean up your stuff!! I need everyone to do their parts! I feel like the maid! Can you do your part? Why are you complaining? Do I complain?  Uhhhh... (inner voice realizes what I just said) 

Does that sound like any sentences in your house? It seems like everything is messy lately. The news and opinions on Covid are incoherent and scary. The guidelines given by the government seem inconsistent and unclear. My kids are not listening to our leadership, the schedule I set for the kids is not followed. The walls need painting, it’s cluttered … let’s "Marie Kondo" this house!

Why do we struggle with imperfection so much? Why are messes so difficult to bear? If we consider many aspects of life, not much of this world is considered perfect – although we like to make it look as perfect as we can.  

I struggle to reconcile it all through my unpredictable days and in this unpredictable time, and that is the reason for this post. How can we live in the belief that there is absolute truth in perfection, while living in our imperfect surroundings?

Even though there is not much left that looks perfect in this world, God has left many clues for us to marvel at His perfection!  Being a homeschooler for five years now, I have been forced to learn much about subjects that I had absolutely no passion for, such as sciences and math which are so hard for my poor little brain to assimilate. I tried to change my attitude and face the daunting task of teaching math to my kids every day, and to try to keep them motivated when I myself only wanted  to skip the whole thing. One thing that changed my attitude though is when I realized who created math and science.

The perfection I found in science and math and their relationship to one another was breathtaking. The perfection of the human body, the precision of the placement of the sun and moon, or the laws by which our earth is effortlessly suspended in space. Or consider the precision and perfection of a simple circle and its infinite mathematical code, Pi. Whether microscopic or gigantic, it always must follow the same code which is never the same number and we have not come to the end of it even with all the software power we now have.   How about flowers? They also follow a perfect law created for them. Did you know that you cannot find a flower with 4, 6, 7 or 11 petals? That’s because they follow the mathematical law that God preestablished for them from the beginning, the law of Fibonacci.  

Because God is perfect in every way, and if we believe He has created us in His image, we therefore seek perfection. God created us from the beginning to enjoy and live in His perfect world and bathe in its goodness and beauty. But because sin entered this world, we now live in an imperfect world in which we continue to long for perfection in ourselves, our peers, surroundings and aspire to attain it as if it is even possible! But what If we started marveling at the source of perfection and Creator of all? Would we start to see His perfection everywhere, be able to rest in it and give Him praise for it?