Picking Apart the View In Front of Me...
I was laying in the sun, drinking coconut water straight from the coconut, feet in the pool, with this view off the palm trees framing the sky. Nearly two weeks with Jamison on vacation in Panama as an early celebration for our 10-year anniversary.
We were coming up on our last day there, soaking up the island scenery and enjoying every second. I started staring at the beautiful scene. as I kept looking at the individual palm fronds, I started noticing the burnt and dead ones. I kept staring. Then soon started seeing cobwebs intertwined with the frond leafs.
I realized something as I sat there. After becoming familiar with the island, its charm, wonder and breathtaking view, I became aware of my tendency to start picking it apart! The more familiar I became, the more I saw the dead fronds and spider webs. “Someone should prune that.” I thought! My appreciation for the bigger picture of the palm tree, it’s shade, coconuts, and beauty it provided in this picturesque paradise was growing dim in my mind as I focused on the details.
It hit me as I was sitting there: that tendency is so much a part of my nature in so many areas of life. Fix, improve, restore, and present without blemishes. This way of thinking can bleed into how I view my home, marriage, children, and church. If it can affect my coconut-drinking-sun-bathing-pool-soaking experience, it can get me anywhere.
My personality can get so focused on the meticulous details of how we could improve the house if we just repainted. Or redecorate. If I just gave my husband that “helpful” feedback to not leave his pants on the middle of the floor, maybe the room can stay perfect. If I do not let my 4-and-a-half-year-old help make dinner I can do it faster and with less mess. Efficiency, right? Wrong.
Perfection does not = happiness.
Control Does not = happiness.
This is true, even though scripture says we are made in the image of a Perfect Creator.
Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him...”
Not only were we created after the perfect God himself, we were also made with eternity on our hearts. We desire our heavenly home, built in perfection. Whether or not we realize this, God’s image is imprinted on us.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end
The Apostle Paul talks about this in his letter to the Corinthians when he says “but when the perfect comes…”
When the perfect comes. It is important to validate the desire for perfection, but that desire must be firmly set on the perfect that is not yet come. There will come a day when my desire for perfection is fully satisfied in Christ and Christ alone, but today I find myself pining for perfection in this imperfect world. I must focus like Jesus instructs:
Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
On this side of heaven my toil should be to honor God and bring him glory in the way I live my life. To guard the way I treat people when I am tempted to try and fix them. To check my heart and attitude towards my home and my imperfect surroundings. To be thankful for the aerial view and be thankful for the individual imperfect people that make up my tribe. And to live joyfully with the cobwebs and the sun fried fronds on the palm trees because they remind me the Perfect is coming!