On EFFICIENCY:The dangers of striving for perfection

It’s insatiable for people like me -
The never-ending drive to make. everything. perfect.

We can literally drive ourselves into micro-insanities throughout a typical day. Every movement, every pillow, every dish; it all has to be done exactly the way it needs to be done.
But, who in the absolute HECK do I think I am that anything I could ever do would touch perfection? Because while I’m rearranging that stack of books for the fiftieth time to make it look “just right”, I’m completely forgetting about what exactly I’m reaching out for. Is it a mad reach for some sort of tangible peace attained by a weird control-trip; or,
Am I reaching to touch the hem of His garment?
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This thought frustrated me.
My perspectives, my motives, they have been so off for a long, long time.
How could I forget?
This was my life’s cry for years- just to touch His garment, and yet my own agendas of production have slowly suffocated worthy passion out of my soul.

I’d overlooked my goal, my pursuit, as if it didn’t matter quite so much anymore.
How could I forget?
Just a single thread adorned on the frame of YHWH is a physical extension of an explosion of perfect, brilliant love.
Something I routinely neglect in my thinking is that this love of His isn’t an optional engagement or an emotion enticed by environmental factors (that tend to sway my fragile understanding.) It is Him. How could I separate that from Jesus like the “feeling” of His love is something I could work hard enough for, like I could possibly attain it on my own apart from Him?
Whack, girl. Just straight-up whack.

A conversation with a very dear friend began to shake the core of this belief. Sometimes you can’t even give Him your “yes”, because it doesn’t even feel like you have the rights to your own choices after making so many foolish ones for so long. Sometimes all you can muster through ground-down teeth is a defeated, “…okay, God.”
Sometimes even just an okay is all He has been waiting for since He laid the foundations of eternity with a word.
He illustrated perfectly that sometimes,
all it takes is that single word.

This hit me like a Mack truck while coloring with my daughter. She handed me all the straggler brown crayons that no one tends to use; yellow and pink and red had been reduced to nubs long before this moment. As I was instructed very specifically how to color the bear and the puppy and the bunny, the thought flooded every inch of my tense, driven body:

I don’t ever want my children to use the word ‘efficient’ when asked to describe me.

I fought back tears as her beautiful blue eyes that could be mistaken for oceans stared at me intently. For the first time in a long time, I felt the tension in my bones begin to melt out onto the floor I was told to lay on.
In that moment I realized that production became my focus instead of a byproduct. I knew right then that my heart’s intent had been crippled beneath years of carefully-developed fear, pride and self-hatred.
Okay, Lord - where do I go from here?

“Come on, my soul. Don’t you get shy on me! Lift up your song, ‘cause you’ve got a Lion inside of those lungs! Get up and praise the Lord!”

At first the bridge of this song stung to repeat. It can be devastatingly difficult to sing to your own crippled soul: devastating to the darkness that is trying to destroy it.
Repeat it again, and again, and again.

You’ve got a Lion inside of those lungs!

As I found myself in a place of repentance, the Lord reminded me of a place we would go together -
Behind my dorm in college, there was a large foothill that took some serious effort to climb. The entire side of this large hill was covered in wild parsnip - a messy, brilliantly yellow weed. I would sit on top of this hill at the tree line and He would take me to a place only we knew about. It was as if He was truly laying before me in the brush, rolling on His back as the Lion (rather, a big silly cat!) enjoying the sun and the beauty of all that was around us.
It brought me true delight to sit on that hillside, but It is so easy to forget about that place as my soul gets weary. Striving likes to snuff out anything that could possibly feed you (and takes everything you have to offer, and then some.)

It’s time to go back.
These past two years have truly been a test of endurance and of our individual abilities to stay sane in the midst of a burning world.
It’s time to go back to that place we last remembered we were in utter delight. Being truly rested and full of joy almost seems like a sin these days in our culture, but I’m convinced that’s why we’ve become so useless as a whole. Producing and striving and plowing has become such a focus that genuine happiness and fulfillment has been reduced to moments of “self-care” and indulgences. True “efficiency” doesn’t look like any of these things, but rather understanding that our lot in life is to love and be loved by Him.
It’s as simple as that.