Sermon Illustrations on Perfection/perfectionism
Background
Defining Perfectionism
The word perfect comes from the Latin perficere, per (complete) and ficere (do). Something considered perfect is that which is completely done; it exists in a state of completion, wholeness, perfection. When we describe something as perfect, what we’re saying is that there’s nothing we could add to it to make it better. Nothing more is needed because you can’t add to something that’s already whole.
Think of someone you love. Now think of the sound of that person’s laughter. Is that sound not perfect? There’s nothing you could change about that laughter to make it better; it’s already complete, it’s already whole. We use the word perfect to emphasize completeness. When you say someone is a “perfect stranger,” you’re not saying they’re a flawless stranger, you’re saying they’re a complete stranger to you. You’re not flawless—none of us are—but you are whole, you are complete, and you are perfect.
Katherine Morgan Schafler, The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power, Penguin Books.
Managing Perfectionism
In the most basic sense, managing your perfectionism looks like becoming aware of the core impulse all perfectionists reflexively experience: noticing room for improvement—Hmm, this could be better—and then consciously responding to that reflex instead of unconsciously reacting to it. Perfectionists are people who consistently notice the difference between an ideal and a reality, and who strive to maintain a high degree of personal accountability. This results in the perfectionist experiencing, more often than not, a compulsion to bridge the gulf between reality and an ideal themselves.
Katherine Morgan Schafler, The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power, Penguin Books.
The Mystery of Perfection
The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living soul who had not existed before the moment of conception and who would exist from that point into eternity.
This perfection also includes hope that just as the wounds of the crucified, risen, and ascended Savior are in beauty glorified, the life he gives will speak a perfecting redemptive word over the wounds and flaws we all endure.
Taken from The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity, and the Church at Its Best by Irwyn L. Ince Jr Copyright (c) 2021by Irwyn L. Ince Jr. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Surrendering Perfection
When we surrender our mistaken goal of self-perfection, the life of faith gradually becomes a joyful adventure again. And a funny thing happens: In forgiving ourselves for being imperfect, we find it easier to forgive others. Our relationships start to change.
Our spouses, children, parents, friends, coworkers, and even enemies begin to feel the ripple effects of the mercy we’ve allowed to flood back into our lives. It’s been said that perfectionists are people who take great pains and pass them on to others. When we kick the perfectionist habit, we stop passing on the pain and start passing on grace instead.
Worth Doing Badly
G. K. Chesterton said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”1 Chesterton wasn’t encouraging mediocrity; he was alerting his audience to an important truth: if you wait to do something until you can do it perfectly, you will never do it. Give it your best shot now. Learn from your mistakes, and then do it better the next time. That’s called growth.
Ken Davis, Fully Alive, Thomas Nelson 2012, p. 22.
Stories
Crafting the Perfect Christmas
Ann was a working mother in her 30’s, and one of the millions of women who saw the marshmallow castle on the December cover of a popular women’s magazine. Ann confessed, later, that she felt like a “bad mother” unless she made something from the magazines every Christmas. But the marshmallow castle was the Waterloo of her annual battle to be Super Mom at Christmas.
The directions for the castle assured her that it was a “traditional project that would add so much to a festive season,” and would provide the “focal point of your holiday decorating” as well. More than likely, the article also said the castle would be fun for the entire family to construct. Ann tackled it by herself.
The ingredients were advertised as inexpensive, but Ann spent much more than she’d anticipated, and was off to a bad start even as she left the grocery store. The editors also claimed that the project was simple enough for a child to make, but Ann spent ten frustrating hours putting it together.
The hardest part for her was the turrets that surrounded the castle. The directions told her to paste peppermint candies to four vertical cardboard tubes with marshmallow crème. When Ann went to bed, the peppermints were holding fast to the towers, but when she woke up the next morning, they had oozed away from their stately positions. The castle was sagging, the towers looked exactly like naked toilet paper rolls, and the peppermint slugs were disgusting.
Ann’s children wanted only to eat the marshmallows. Ann’s husband took one look at the white glob of goo and declared it the ugliest thing he’d ever seen. “He didn’t even want it in the house,” she said.
The next Christmas, Ann was much more selective with her Christmas energy. “This year I’m going to spend that time with my children,” she said. “That’s what they really want from me, anyway.” (Source: Unplug the Christmas Machine, Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli, New York: William Morrow, 1991, pp. 28-29)
Andy Cook
The Dart-Board
The Benedictine nun Joan Chittister recounts a story she once heard by a communications professor, which she said fundamentally changed the way she thought about success and failure:
A young boy was given a dartboard for Christmas one year and he instantaneously began playing with it. In a complete shock, his first dart hit the bull’s-eye. Surprised and excited, the father yanked the child’s mother from the other room in time to watch the young boy throw a second bull’s eye! At this point, the father gathered the entire family to watch him throw the third dart. Amazingly, he did it again. A third bull’s eye!
At that point, the boy stopped throwing the darts, and promptly shelved the dart board. Over and over again the family pleaded with him to throw another dart, but he refused to do so. As Chittister said in retelling the story, “The child with the dartboard knew what his father did not intuit: A record like his could only be shattered, not enhanced. From now on he could only be known for losing because he could never win so much again.”
Stuart Strachan Jr., source material from Joan Chittister, Between the Dark and the Daylight, 2015, p.61, The Crown Publishing Group.
Studies
Little Musicians that Lasted
In 1997 Gary McPherson studied 157 randomly selected children as they picked out and learned a musical instrument. Some went on to become fine musicians and some faltered. McPherson searched for the traits that separated those who progressed from those who did not. IQ was not a good predictor. Neither were aural sensitivity, math skills, income, or a sense of rhythm. The best single predictor was a question McPherson had asked the students before they had even selected their instruments: How long do you think you will play?
The students who planned to play for a short time did not become very proficient. The children who planned to play for a few years had modest success. But there were some children who said, in effect: “I want to be a musician. I’m going to play my whole life.” Those children soared. The sense of identity that children brought to the first lesson was the spark that would set off all the improvement that would subsequently happen. It was a vision of their future self.
David Brooks, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (pp. 134-135). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Analogies
The Dart-Board
The Benedictine nun Joan Chittister recounts a story she once heard by a communications professor, which she said fundamentally changed the way she thought about success and failure:
A young boy was given a dartboard for Christmas one year and he instantaneously began playing with it. In a complete shock, his first dart hit the bull’s-eye. Surprised and excited, the father yanked the child’s mother from the other room in time to watch the young boy throw a second bull’s eye! At this point, the father gathered the entire family to watch him throw the third dart. Amazingly, he did it again. A third bull’s eye!
At that point, the boy stopped throwing the darts, and promptly shelved the dart board. Over and over again the family pleaded with him to throw another dart, but he refused to do so. As Chittister said in retelling the story, “The child with the dartboard knew what his father did not intuit: A record like his could only be shattered, not enhanced. From now on he could only be known for losing because he could never win so much again.”
Stuart Strachan Jr., source material from Joan Chittister, Between the Dark and the Daylight, 2015, p.61, The Crown Publishing Group.
Running The (Wrong) Race
We want everyone around us to believe we have it all together—and we don’t. We fear everyone else is living the lives they post and we are the only imposters. And so, the race is on. The race to perfection. The race to instant success and gratification. The race toward fame, promotion, and adoration. But what if life isn’t meant to be raced through? What if it’s meant to be lived?
Taken from It’s Not Your Turn by Heather Thompson Day. Copyright (c) 2021 by Heather Marie Day. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com
What One Perfectionist Mother Looks Like
I never considered myself a perfectionist before I had children. Perfectionism was someone else’s problem. It was the affliction of those pasty-faced library moles that haunted the campus stacks on Saturday nights, still cramming after everyone else had left to grab a beer. It was the curse of the hulking workout kings who passed entire spring days pumping and groaning in the mirror-lined mausoleum of the campus gym.
Perfectionism was what made frazzled mothers stay up all night hand-sewing Halloween costumes and what turned fathers into red-faced sideline screamers or workaholics who missed the game altogether. A perfectionist was that tortured soul who always seems to land in front of me in the salad bar line, the one who inspects each lettuce leaf as if sifting for gold and complains to the waiter about the radish shaving someone dropped in the fat-free ranch. That’s a perfectionist, I thought. And that’s not me.
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