Is your life everything you hoped it would be, back when you were a child or a young person? If you’re not STILL either of those, chances are pretty good you’d glumly shake your head and admit that your life has fallen short of expectations. And possibly in very many categories!
Even if your home and car look like the above picture, likely other areas of your life are not so picture perfect. My life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would decades ago either. I remember an exercise we did in my church youth group when I was a teenager. We were asked to write down what we wanted our life to look like 50+ years in the future.
As a starry-eyed teenager who wasn’t even dating anyone at the time, I wrote down that I wanted to have celebrated my 50th wedding anniversary after 50 wonderful years of marriage. Yeah, right! Anyone who’s been married for even a few years knows that it’s hard work! Sure, there can be many blessings and much joy and happiness, but it ain’t all rosy. But I am grateful for the 30+ years God gave to Dale and me.
The truth is, if we are hoping for perfection, we will never find it in this world. Period.
So, let’s take a few minutes and talk about why our lives have fallen short. Do you beat yourself up because you think you’ve messed up time and time again? Are there character qualities that have kept you from living a more perfect life? How about if you’d had a better parent, spouse, child, boss, friend etc.? Would that have helped? Maybe winning the lottery so you could get that fancy home and car?
Of course, we all make unwise decisions and struggle with sinful character traits that certainly can contribute to this “perfection erosion.”
But, here’s the bottom line. God doesn’t want us to have a perfect life, as we define it. He wants us to have the perfect life, as HE defines it.
Hmmmm…Is that a head-scratcher for you? Maybe. But it’s the perfect segue into why we go through difficult times, and more importantly, what God can accomplish in our lives because of them. I did a 3-part series on trials a few months ago (find the first one here if you want to revisit that), so I won’t recount all the profound ways that God works through our trials in this post.
I want to help you view your less-than-perfect life with new eyes. Rather than beating yourself up for all the ways you’ve fallen short – or carrying around anger or bitterness towards others who have messed up your life, think on this: God has used, is using and will use EVERYTHING in your life for your ultimate good and His glory.
I guarantee it won’t feel like it as you go through it, and you might be tempted to shake your fist at God from time to time, but He is the Creator and we are the created. And He is weaving that infamous tapestry where we only see those ragged knots on the underside. One day, you too, will see the magnificent front side of your life’s tapestry.
Trust His love for you enough to know there’s purpose in every disappointment that has tarnished your perfect life. I promise, if you look for it, God will never disappoint. That’s my prayer for you – AND for me.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9
I needed this today! ❤️