Exhausting Expectations

*Sigh...* Perhaps I'm alone in this, but I find this Christian life exhausting. Forgive me the sacrilege, and permit me my honesty. No matter how hard I try, I keep messing up. Change is slow in coming, and I cant seem to "get it right". I feel very much like Paul, wanting to right, but doing wrong instead. In the end I just feel like a miserable failure.

I have echos from my childhood ringing in my mind. The voices of my parents saying "There is no point in doing something if you're not going to do it right!" My paternal grandfather asking "If you don't have time to do it right the first time, how will you ever have time to do it over?" A common theme while growing up, although never so clearly stated, was "'Good enough', isn't." I know there is wisdom in their words. My parents were trying to impress upon me the value and importance of a job well done. In a lot of ways I wish I had learned those lessons better, and could finally conquer my natural penchant for procrastination.

In some ways, however, those childhood lessons can be a double-edged sword. For example, "good enough" is, even if its not perfect, if it truly is your best. This lesson was driven home to me less than a month ago while hiking with my dad. We both had given everything we could, and had pushed ourselves to the point of injury (I'm still treating injured knees and ankles.) Truth be told, we should have stopped a day earlier, but for several reasons, largely just stubborn determination (which sounds better than just plain old stubbornness) we pressed on. That final evening, sitting beside the trail on a hill, watching the sun go down, my dad and I had a real heart-to-heart. He asked me a question I'd never heard him ask before. "Would anyone else, in your circumstances, given your current limitations, be able to honestly say they'd done all they could?" Basically, the question boils down to: "Are you holding yourself to an unrealistic standard or expectation which you would not demand of others?"

Honestly, I struggled with that question. I don't recall ever looking at any situation that way before. Typically, I just compare my accomplishments against what I think I should have been able to do, which is usually based more upon what I (or others) wanted, and less upon reality. Another measure I use is how well I think my parents, mentor, or someone else would have done. But again, those are somewhat idealized standards, and don't take into account numerous factors such as experience, training and talent.

Likewise, I use these same measures in my spiritual walk. I compare myself to others, or to how I want to be. Logically I know that is not how God measures, but that doesn't seem an adequate explanation to my guilt-ridden heart. I feel that I should have done better, tried harder, demanded more of myself... somehow, in some way, I should have been able to avoid failing again. That failure is then followed by self-loathing, defeatism, a fear that I will never get it right...

A friend of mine asked me a question once. "What does God expect from you?" His answer blew me away: "Failure." Failure?.Really? God expects failure? Yes. He expects failure. He knows that on our best day, we will still fail; That's why he sent Jesus. God doesn't hold me to perfection, or even the standard of what others might set. He only asks for my best. That's it. Just the best that I can offer Him today, in these circumstances, with these limitations. And then, here is the beautiful part, He provides His grace to cover all the places where I fall short.

Whenever I begin to ask myself if I really gave that hike everything, if I possibly could have gone farther, tried harder, if I really left it all on that hillside, my aching knees and ankles remind me that yes, I gave it all.

Likewise when my spiritual walk falls short, I need to remember that Jesus gave it all, and I can leave all my failings on that hillside, at the foot of the cross, and then rest in His grace.