Now v. Then

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been struggling recently (again, again) with the huge and yawning gap between who I am and who I want to be. And the difficulty isn’t just about those nice spiritual characteristics one wants to have to be a ‘good’ person, but everything – everything… including the seeming impossibility of any path between here and there. This is one of the thoughts I’ve had while in the midst of this:

Perfection is a process, not an event. So if you feel yourself distant from it, don’t feel dismayed – you must be distant, here, at this stage. Christ offers us the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4) incrementally, in amounts we can absorb and integrate into ourselves. Too much at once would overwhelm us. Just like we can’t take the beauty of heaven, as mortals (because it’s too glorious to endure in our state), we couldn’t take the whole change of perfect-ness at once.

Besides which, it’s a moot thought. Perfection only comes through life; through change, and the experience of being alive – acting, hurting, trying, failing, holding on to something good, faith, hope, heartache, learning, desiring, improving and the growth of wisdom and love. All the struggle which tears things apart inside you and reshapes them. It happens through overcoming.