"Seemingly perfect."

For some reason it has become desirable for us as humans to hide the fact that we aren’t perfect, that we make mistakes, and that we’re not always happy. It has become appealing to sweep our problems under the rug, to put on a mask and to keep quiet about life’s real struggles when in the public eye. But this isn’t the way it was intended to go, this isn’t how it should be. We see people’s tweets about how wonderful life is and how much they love their friends, but there is an underlying pain they hardly ever speak up about for everyone to see. Even in our churches, nobody wants to fess up about life’s hardships. Nobody wants to seem like they don’t have it all together, like life isn’t picture perfect, and like they could use some encouragement. Because, let’s face it… who asks for help anymore?

But what I’ve learned is that in the vulnerability of honestly admitting, publicly for others to hear, “I am not perfect. I am struggling and I need encouragement,” is that people care and respond lovingly because so many of them feel the same way. Oftentimes, relief fills people’s faces when you bring up a hardship or something tough that you’re going through because they realize it’s okay for them to be open about their own struggles. That’s what friendship is. That’s what neighbors need to be like today. It shouldn’t be a competition where we want to act like everything is okay so that nobody knows that everything is actually falling apart- we are all sinners in this together and so we need to rely on one another. We need to encourage and persevere with one another. The church isn’t for perfect people; it is a hospital for broken people that desperately need to be fixed by God.

But that’s not the way that it is. We have families that are falling apart, too afraid to ask for help or even bring to light the fact that they’re having problems because they don’t want people to know. We have teenagers who are depressed, who are cutting themselves and starving themselves but they can’t tell people that for fear of what people will think. But what if it wasn’t about impressing the people around us? What if it was about struggling with and helping the people around us? 

We live in a fallen world. What it has to offer us might please us in the moment, but in the end it will not bring us happiness. We are sinners that will never be fully satisfied apart from God. He is the perfection we are searching for, we are incapable of being. So we have to be willing to be vulnerable and open with the people in our lives. We are all hurting, we are all broken, but we need to stop acting like everything is perfect because it’s not. It’s okay to be imperfect. God loved us in our imperfection and He alone can satisfy. 

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
     Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
⁹ Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,
    for those who fear him have no lack!
¹⁰ The young lions suffer want and hunger;
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

-Psalm 34:8-10