Picture Perfect!

Yes.That's exactly  the way I like my house kept.Clothes all washed and folded,the bed neatly made and furniture exactly the way they ought to be.Unfortunately, the house is shared with others who don't think the way I do.We live in a fallen world,you see,Lol.My parents come home and shoes,socks and bags are tossed everywhere(my brother used to be an expert at this!),newspaper spread all over the living room just because my Dad doesn't finish reading it in one sitting,and the house turned into a mess(well..atleast by my standards).Then there's my cousin who comes home on weekends and by the time he leaves the house,it would seem like his room has been hit by a tornado.This is when I start my usual whining and complaining.'What's wrong with all of you Ma? Can't you put things back in their proper places?' to which I'd either get a calm reply 'We're too old .When I was your age I kept the house spotless too!' or a louder response-'Papaa!God doesn't care how you keep the house.It's only a clean heart that really matters'(Yeah,right!).My Dad would go on to say something like this-'What on earth are you here for?It's your job to keep the house clean'.Then,there's the classic reply-'You are too proud.You think too much of yourself.It's high time you change yourself and show us some respect'.The hopeless argument would go on till I return to the next round of cleaning minus the whining.So much for trying to keep the house in a perfect shape!

Perfection.Isn't that we all want?We want a perfect house,a perfect car, perfect friends with perfect character.But fact is no one's perfect and I'm not either.Definitely not and even as I'm writing, I've got these feelings of inadequacies battling within me. But you know what? I serve a perfect God who is quite keen on working on my imperfections because as His children,we are called to become like Him,aren't we?We are called to strive towards perfection of character,a course of action that requires perseverance and discipline.In the third chapter of Philippians Paul writes thus:

"Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected—but I strive to lay hold of that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: forgetting the things behind and reaching out for the things ahead, with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Paul readily admits that he was far from perfection. He even referred to himself as the “chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Notice, however, that Paul doesn't give up when he realized that he couldn't attain perfection in this life. He tells us that he was continuing to press forward and that he expected to make progress.God wants us to press forward towards perfection too.No,it's not easy and for God to work on our anger,ego,pride, arrogance and emotional imbalances it takes time.A lot of it in fact.But that also means spending more time with Him, inculcating His qualities in us.So let's allow Him to prune us,to mould us so that we become the kind of person He wants us to be.Let not the cliché 'No one's perfect' become an excuse for spiritual stagnancy.May God give us the grace to be found blameless when He returns!


PS:Before you start imagining my house as a pig sty,let me clarify.Its not that bad.Just that I'm a clean freak or rather used to be one:)