This is the first in a series of articles entitled “Getting Over Yourself for Lent.” We’ll have a new article every week of this Lenten Season.
Perfectionists are compulsive measurers. I know this to be true as a textbook perfectionist, myself. Recently, I decided to confront my decade-old addiction to my phone and social media. I bought a device called a Brick to lock myself out of most of the apps on my phone. And so far, it’s worked pretty well. And yet the Brick app itself is always accessible and always counting up the number of minutes, hours, days, and averages I’ve achieved by “staying away” from my phone. Locked out of every other dopamine-inducing option to measure my worth, I now find myself reliant on this one measurement for my self-preservation (I’m at 723 lifetime hours and counting, thanks for asking).
Perfectionists might be tempted to approach the season of Lent similarly: forty whole days to count up my righteousness by giving something up, testing my self-discipline, proving my spiritual prowess? Sign me up! But perfectionist or not, and Lenten season or not, at some point, we all try to measure something in our lives in the hopes that it will be enough.
The Rich Young Ruler in the Synoptic Gospels is not only a compulsive measurer, but he also believes his perfectionism will impress the Messiah. He earnestly approaches Jesus not just to impress him, but also because he’s counted everything up and he knows he still lacks something.
“Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” he asks Jesus (Matt. 19:16).
Even adorned in all of his self-righteousness and in all the worldly trappings of success – his upstanding moral character, his wealth, his position of power – the rich young ruler knows that what he has to offer Jesus is not enough to give him eternal life. And yet as a perfectionist, he remains hopeful there is something he can do - something he can practice or achieve - that will get him there.
Psychologist Thomas Curran, who talks and writes about the rise of perfectionism in the past two decades, defines perfectionism in this way:
“Contrary to popular belief, perfectionism is never about perfecting things or perfecting tasks. It’s not about striving for excellence. At its root, perfectionism is about perfecting the self, or more precisely, perfecting an imperfect self.”
What makes Perfectionists obsessive is searching for relief from the assault that they haven’t yet done enough.
In other words, while many may view perfectionists as those dripping in pride, perfectionists are actually people who are unrelentingly aware of their flaws. What remains at the forefront of their minds is not their successes but the fact that something internal keeps them from hitting the mark. What makes them obsessive is searching for relief from the assault that they haven’t yet done enough.
During Lent, it’s difficult for us to give up measuring and performing. Even the hounding of the law can just encourage us more, offering a new challenge to rise in righteousness by the time Easter rolls around. While Lent is meant to expose our sins and self-reliance, for a perfectionist, it can feel like an opportunity to overcome sin through self-reliance, through more doing. This is similar to the reasoning of the Rich Young Ruler, who expects Jesus to issue him one more thing to add to his life-long accumulation of wealth, status, and goodness. “What do I still lack?” he asks. What he doesn’t expect is for Jesus to obliterate his pursuit of perfection altogether:
And so Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matt. 19:21).
We go through life accumulating different successes, achievements, disciplines, and challenges, I think in part, to shield ourselves from having to face the music that what we truly lack is not one more attempt at perfection (nor one more disciplined season of Lent), but instead a confession about the utter depths of our flaws. At last, Jesus’ command to the Rich Young Ruler delivers the final lightning bolt of the law (as Martin Luther would say).
“When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Matt. 19:22).
Just like the Rich Young Ruler, if (and when) we hear the law as a challenge to do more in order to be saved, God will keep at us with his thunderstorm.
The Rich Young Ruler’s wealth is foundational to how he measures his worth. Without it, he can’t see any way forward. Without it, he has to admit that it’s not just one thing he lacks; it’s everything because the law will not save him. And so he leaves, sad and sorrowful. He leaves with an answer, but not the one he wanted. Instead, he leaves knowing his status doesn’t count for anything in Jesus’ eyes. His pursuit of perfection won’t get him anything. His material wealth - which is his most revered possession - is keeping him out of the kingdom of heaven because he trusts in it more than he trusts in God; more than he trusts in the God-man standing right in front of him.
Just like the Rich Young Ruler, if (and when) we hear the law as a challenge to do more in order to be saved, God will keep at us with his thunderstorm. He will let the lightning of the law strike the same place more than once until idols are smashed, and our measuring sticks break into smithereens. Until, at last, we are forced to admit we trust in something or someone more than our Savior (including perfectionism itself).
After the Rich Young Ruler leaves, Jesus turns to his disciples and says:
Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’ (Matt. 19:23-25).
Who then can be saved? Any answer the law gives is no one. But fortunately, the law does not give the final answer to this question; Jesus does. Jesus looks at them and says, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (vs. 26).
Who can be saved? Through God alone, you can be saved. Through faith in Christ, you are saved. As Paul says in Romans 3 and elsewhere, your justification by faith in Christ is entirely and completely separate from the law:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:21-26).
God takes nothing from us to save us - in fact, he refuses our every attempt to help him out - and in return, he gives us everything. He saves us before we do any work, which means our work, while it is promised, is not the point. In the season of Lent, we would do well to remember this.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what exactly I need to hear when I’m struggling with perfectionism: what message points me back to Christ and pulls me away from the obsessive, never-ending climb toward the ideal?
Hearing that I don’t have to be perfect just because no one is perfect doesn’t offer me much comfort (no one’s perfect, yet, I may whisper to myself). It also doesn’t seem to help much to hear that Jesus lived a perfect life so that I don’t have to, although both statements, on some level, are true. Both of these answers only play into the idea that the law has more to say about our destiny than Jesus does. And so the nagging need to keep accruing and “doing” my way toward perfection persists.
Instead, what I’ve realized I need to hear is that Jesus has saved me by doing an entirely new thing through his dying and rising work on the cross. His work and righteousness alone count. So while challenging myself to be better isn’t always inherently bad, it won’t ever get me what I truly want. Because he is eternally righteous, through his dying and rising, Christ alone makes the impossible possible by giving me all of those things I crave from trying to make myself perfect: value, meaning, identity, and acceptance.
Christ won’t let your end be that of the Rich Young Ruler, because Jesus is your Savior.
The more trust you put in the law or the peak of perfectionism to save you, the further you are from where Christ claims you as his: not on the mountaintops of fasting success or spiritual discipline achievement, but in the valleys of despair and repentance, where you have nothing to cling to but his righteousness.
Fortunately, in Christ, we are not meant to remain there. Christ won’t let your end be that of the Rich Young Ruler, because Jesus is your Savior. His righteousness is manifested apart from the law and given to you in exchange for your failures, your flaws, and your glaring inadequacies.
By every measure of the law, we should be named as last - for we cannot escape ourselves, we cannot make ourselves good, we cannot and will not give up on ourselves. And yet, through Christ’s righteousness alone, we are named as first. So this Lent, set aside your measurements. Resist the urge to look at how well you’re doing by giving up pastries and wine in comparison to your neighbor. Instead of pursuing perfectionism, let trust in God’s true promise guide your spiritual disciplines, your fasting, and serve as the only answer to your repentance.
