He has been called many things: The Son of God, The Messiah, Savior, The Word Made Flesh, The Truth, and he has been called perfect. We hear that word quite often in our culture. It can be used to describe a game, a diamond, a dress, a golf score, an evening. It’s typically something rarely attained- if at all ever- yet something that we all strive to be. But it’s funny how when we start to refer to people as perfect that we tend to go a bit sideways about it. I remember back in my school days that there was a girl in my third grade class that I thought was perfect. She had perfect ringlet curls, her clothes were always nice, she seemed to always be smiling, she was well liked, she was the senator’s daughter, and I couldn’t stand her. I didn’t like her not for anything that she had done to me. Actually, she was quite pleasant in all of the interactions that I recall. I didn’t like her because I saw her as something that I could never be: Perfect.
I want to be perfect.
I really do. I want a perfect body, a perfect relationship with my wife and daughter, a perfect balance of priorities ... perfection.
Perfection doesn't just offer me a way feel good about myself, it is also the road to what many people would term "success".
Recently, Mark Burnett, the producer of hit shows like Survivor, Shark Tank and Duets, spoke at a conference of young Christian leaders. During his interview he talked about a lesson he learned while filming the soon-to-be released 10hour TV mini-series based on the Bible. He gave this memorable story and advice:
What is the primary object of our affections? Who do we love the most? How is it measured? And what happens when the fullest and finest feelings of love that we expect from what and who we count on to love, aren’t quite the same anymore? The feelings don’t last as long, or they begin to seemingly slip into something else. What happens when what we think we love the most and live our lives for, fail us? How do we respond to those fearful whispers of discovering that perhaps there isn’t anything or anyone in this world really, that will fill to full the deepest desires of our hearts?
