Unlike Mary Poppins, most of us are not capable of being “practically
perfect in every way”—or are we?
I recently gained a new insight into perfection from Karen
Casey and Martha Vanceburg, who wrote, “…perfection…is not a frozen, changeless
state, but…a part of our perpetual becoming.” This understanding makes perfect
sense, because one thing we definitively know about God is that God embodies
change, for God is always creating something new. Perhaps, then, our definition
of perfection has been wrong all along: What if, Instead of being something
static that can’t be improved upon, perfection is actually a state of willingness
to embrace the constant change that is part of life and death? If that is the
case, then “Being perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” means accepting and
even reveling in the changes that come with loving, forgiving, creating, and
dying to self.
Facing change sometimes seems daunting, but our bodies know very
well how to do it—every second an untold number of our cells are dying and new
ones are being generated. Although we aren’t aware of it, within a period of seven
years or so, every cell in our body has been replaced. To be human, and to
fulfill God’s purpose, is to change. And no matter what that change looks like,
accepting it leads us to a state of perfection—you might even say, “being practically
perfect in every way.”
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