If someone accused you of being imperfect, would you consider it to be an insult and be offended?
On the other hand, if someone called you perfect, would you consider it to be a sort of complement and appreciate it?
Both words come from the Latin verb perficio, especially its past participle form perfectus meaning brought to an end, completed, finished.
They’re not judgmental words. It doesn’t mean, e.g., that you won, but simply that you persevered to the end.
Forgive me, then, for stating the obvious: you’re an imperfect person, not a perfect one—after all, you’re not dead yet!
Sometimes “imperfect” is taken to mean relating to or characterized by defects or weaknesses, but that may be unfair. Imperfect basically means that it’s not over yet, it’s a work in progress.
We all are meant to be perfectionists—we all are meant to persevere, despite the challenges and setbacks, and to continue to run life’s race until it is completed, for better or for worse.
If you were selected to race in the Olympics, that selection itself would be a great honor and recognition whether or not you later got a special medal for outstanding performance.
No matter what, nor where, nor when, each of us is imperfect—and we continue to be imperfect every day of our life until it’s over; that’s when we become perfect.
The judgement of our lives is not comparative; we’re not competing in a contest—we’re just striving to make it through, as best we can, to the end.
But . . . not anything goes. We’re not monkeys, birds, sloths, or antelope, we’re human beings. We must persevere as human beings until our end. We must live our lives according to God’s design and will until our end.
It’s possible to make it through till the end in the basic sense of surviving, but we may not when it comes to the quality of our lives and the realization of our potential.
Remember, Jesus said (cf. Luke 9:23-24):
. . . If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
Regarding this, the quality of our lives and Jesus’ challenging standards, we also are imperfect and living imperfect lives.
All our life, spiritually too, is a work in progress. Fumbling, bungling, or not, we’re all engaged in a daily struggle involving self-denial and perseverance in imitating the Lord as best we can.
You may be an imperfect follower of Jesus right now, in the sense of having defects or weaknesses. But, your life’s journey is not yet ended.
If you persevere until the end trying to live as he teaches, your life is a success story, whether or not you get some recognition and award for outstanding performance.
Everyone who gets to heaven is a saint, a holy person, whether canonized a saint and held up as a model to be imitated or not!
Men or women who enter a religious order and take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience used to be considered “in a State of Perfection”. More accurately they are in a state of seeking perfection, seeking to be poor, chaste, and obedient until the end of their lives.
But, like all of us, they really are in a state of imperfection until their lives are done!
14 August 2022