NOBODY’S PERFECT!

Psalm 119:96 AMP I have seen that all [human] perfection has its limits [no matter how grand and perfect and noble];

Psalm 119:96 CEV Nothing is completely perfect, except your teachings.

I wonder if you’re one of those people who strive for perfection and feel upset when you can’t make things as perfect as you’d like, or when other people do things in a less than perfect way and it drives you up the wall?😊

The difficulty is everyone’s standard can be different and only God is perfect! Our verse says our human perfection has its limits and when we recognise that, it can set us free. It’s something I’m still learning, and when we, or someone else, does something that falls short of our standard we have to show grace, because we, or they, have done it as best they can and that’s all we can ask.

Sometimes we set the bar so high for ourselves, we make a rod for our own backs, and we can cause ourselves stress because we were taught that perfection was the only way. I remember hanging wallpaper once in my bathroom and I’d worked so hard all day to get it perfect but when I stood back I realised one panel was upside down and the flowers were growing down, not up! I learned that day to go easy on myself and get things into perspective, so I left it and it became a talking point!😊

I know God wants us to ask the Holy Spirit to help us with all we do, and to do the best we can, but not to the detriment of our health or to make others feel inadequate. 

So maybe this word is for someone today, to lighten up on ourselves, or maybe on others, and be a bit more flexible, to realise only God is perfect. We none of us get it right all the time and we all have our limits, so let’s just enjoy life when it’s perfect, and especially when it’s not.😊 

Can anybody say ‘Amen’? 

PARCELS OF PRAYER

James 5:16 NLT … The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Well I’ve sent off my last parcel full of love and Christmas gifts for those who receive them far away, and hope they like them.😊 As I was posting my parcels I felt the Lord was saying our faith filled prayers for people are like parcels. They go out packed with God’s anointing to change their lives, to give them hope and bring about His purposes.

What a great thought and it encourages me to pray more when I imagine them like parcels the people will receive, even if they never know we prayed for them! Some prayers are like secret parcels that we send out in faith, knowing our God is faithful and He answers our prayers. 

We sometimes write ‘Fragile’ or ‘Handle with care’ on the outside of a box and God knows about our fragile situations, and we can trust Him to always handle our parcels of prayer with care. Even when they’re quick ‘envelope’ prayers, our verse says they’re all effective.😊

Sometimes we join with others to believe together for the parcel to be received with great joy when the answers come quickly, but have you ever had a parcel get lost in the post? It can be stressful, waiting for the postman to find it and make sure it’s delivered! In the same way we sometimes feel like our prayers have been lost somewhere in the postal department of heaven but actually they haven’t, they’re just being processed!

So next time you pray for someone, whether they’re secret parcels or not, big or small, let’s do it with faith in our hearts. We know our God hears every prayer of faith and He will answer them in His good time with His great power packed in the box to make them happen, so we can have great expectation for wonderful results.😊 In Jesus name. Amen.

Photo: Phil Hearing on Unsplash