“Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.”  That’s what a popular bumper sticker tells us.  I agree; I am just a sinner saved by the grace of God.  As a Christian, I now represent Him on this earth.  For me, the knowledge that I am an ambassador of a holy and perfect God is often a HUGE burden because I feel I am such a flawed individual, and yet, Jesus Christ covers my sins with His sinless perfection.

I grew up in a church where perfection seemed to be the goal, or at least I saw it that way.  My family started regularly attending church when I was 8 years old, a very foreign concept to all of us at first.  We were not your average church family.  My friends mostly came from families that had been in church “all their lives;” their parents had been married for a long time and usually only to each other; these kids frowned upon alcohol consumption and smokers; they did not know anyone who used foul language – and would probably cover their mouths with their hands and go, “aaaaaawwwww!!” if they even just heard someone say dumb or stupid.

I was different:  I had only recently even heard the real story of Jesus Christ; my parents were divorced and remarried; my biological father and many of the members of my step family continued to drink and smoke, and some even used drugs.  Although I never used the words myself, I already knew what a lot of not-so-nice words and phrases meant.  I wanted more than anything to be like THEM:  the pure, clean, innocent kids.  I wanted to be perfect, too.

Of course, you can guess that I found out all too soon that even those perfect Christian families had their own skeletons in their closets, or even if they didn’t, there was a whole different set of complications that sometimes came from striving to live righteously before God, namely self-righteousness and hypocrisy.  However, with my childish understanding, I tried very hard to be good, and I failed often. Perhaps because of the harshness of the preaching I heard or just my immature interpretation of it, I felt the weight of God’s wrath and judgment upon me.  It seemed that I could not please people and God enough.

My family desired to have a Christian home, but it was slow progress.  My parents, I think, felt a need to atone for their lives prior to knowing Christ – for the bad marriages, the children who were now step-siblings and half-siblings, and other mistakes of their non-Christian past. They worked hard to be perfect too; however, all actions have consequences, even those committed before one has surrendered to God’s will. In fact, many of those bad circumstances were what drove us to our knees to acknowledge we needed God’s help.

Through my childhood misconceptions, I have learned that the Christian life is not a journey to perfection but a journey of progression. As we learn more about God’s character through His Word and live to seek His glory, the more our own actions will fall into line with what He wants for us and less with focusing on our own appearance.  I am looking for a balance between pleasing God and yet accepting God’s grace.

Why do you think some Christians feel pressure to appear perfect?  I would like to share more of my journey and study in my next article.  Until then, please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences about this subject.