YouTube: The Perfection Trap
When Jesus said we should be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect, we may think he was setting a pretty high bar. Sometimes just being good is a tough job. Being perfect? Living through one day without making a single mistake may be asking a bit much.
While we should all strive to be the best we can be, there are some areas where we strive for perfection, at least conceptually, that we would do well to revisit. I’ve listed five.
1. Spiritual Perfection: The trap is the belief that we are supposed to reach a place where no more growth is possible, we’re at the top. We do not reach spiritual perfection; we realize that we are already spiritually perfect.
2. Earth is a school: This is a common model held by many. The trap here is the possibility of feeling like you are perpetually stuck in the fifth grade. The way to avoid this trap is to release this model.
3. The condition of your body reflects the condition of your soul. The trap is believing that if your body is aging or ill, your soul is flunking its tests.
4. Your thinking can impact the health of your soul. The trap is the belief that your thinking is powerful enough to alter the nature of your soul. Thinking affects the quality of your experience, but it has no impact whatsoever on the makeup of your soul.
5. Your spiritual imperfection interferes with your relationship to God. The trap is the belief that God responds to your states of consciousness like a human being would. Nothing you think, say, or do can change your relationship of oneness with God.
These, of course, are not hard and fast rules, but it never hurts to take a fresh look at the basic ideas that guide our spiritual thinking. We may have latched onto ideas that made sense in our early, exploratory years, but no longer do. Earth as a school was a big one for me. Laboratory might be a more stimulating metaphor. The point is, we want to make the most of our life in the body. Finding ways to free ourselves from false or limiting beliefs will go a long way in this direction.