Just Too Perfect
The online dating service eHarmony.com says it specializes in finding "soul mates," and in order to make these matches it has rejected 77,759 people since 1998!
Online dating services are becoming increasingly popular, and just as increasingly selective. They want to offer their customers quality candidates "instead of just another loser who fibbed about his age, weight, and quantity of hair."* The online dating service eHarmony.com says it specializes in finding "soul mates," and in order to make these matches it has rejected 77,759 people since 1998! Why?
One of its tools is a 19-question "lie scale" designed to eliminate applicants who try to paint too rosy a picture of themselves. You know. Like claiming they always obey the speed limit, never forget birthdays, make it on time for every appointment, and they never have bad breath. No way. That's just too perfect. It's a plain and simple lie.
Sounds too much like our instinctive attempts to get right with God. Instead of just filling out the application with the stinky, rotten truth about ourselves, we fib a little bit. We tell God how good we are (by distinguishing ourselves from all those serial killers or reminding him that we donated our unusable clothes to the DAV truck that picked them up at our front door). We go on to actually convince ourselves that we are good enough to be God's "soul mate." We present ourselves to him as the perfect candidate. And so the fib turns into an outright lie.
No way.
That's the message Jesus had in Matthew 23 for the religious leaders of his day who presented themselves to him and others as the perfect kind of people God would want to hang out with. Jesus detected their lie and rejected their application. "You hypocrites! You are like white-washed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead people's bones and everything unclean." He later laments that he longed to gather them into his special group of believers, but they "were not willing." Not willing to be honest, and approach Jesus with a humility that trusts in his promises of grace and forgiveness.
Don't be too perfect – when you appeal to God for his help and salvation. He's not looking for the perfect candidate, but the honest one.
PRAYER: When I face the reality of my weakness and the mess I've made with my mistakes, Lord, open my heart to share them with you. To share them with the faith and confidence that you understand, and that you forgive, and that you redirect circumstances to be helpful and not harmful for those you love. Open my eyes to see the temptations to lie to you, others, and myself so that I look good, and strengthen me to resist such sin, not boasting in myself but trusting in you. Amen.
*From an article in The Wall Street Journal (July 30, 2003 by Jane Spencer)