Kate Bowler - Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection

If you check your social media feed, the debate has been settled. Yes, you can be perfect. Other people are living beautiful, joyful, effortless lives. In fact, its embarrassing that you havent joined their ranks already.

Use this moisturizer. Lose those extra pounds. Smile at the cashier. Did you really give ten percent of your income to charity this year? Your grandma needs a card. Im not sure youve forgiven your father. Your inbox is out of control. Did you finish that degree? There is a ninety-nine percent chance your childrens photos have not been scrapbooked. Wait, what about that credit card debt? Your partner thinks youre selfish. Are you making the most of this?

And then what about the real stuff? You cheated. Or he did. You cant seem to find the person you wanted to be with or become that person yourself. Youve been drinking again, and people are starting to notice. The program or job is a complete dead end. That teenagers addiction is eating you alive. Your mom is losing her memory and is miserable to care for. You wanted to be more: happier, healthier, wealthier, more grounded. But youre not.

We are living under the weight of the Perfectibility Paradigm.

Try harder. Do better. Other people are already at the finish line.

One of the most counterintuitive parts of the Christian tradition is its emphasis on progress when it doesnt believe in absolute perfection. Jesus alone is perfect. But we are asked to try and try and try again. We are required to walk toward God to the steady drumbeat of improvement.

We have entire faith traditions and denominations and institutions who come down on different sides of the debate surrounding how perfect we should expect to become. Some traditions, like Lutherans and Southern Baptists for example, double down on the language of justification, the account of how Jesuss death and resurrection saves us. And I mean, saves us. We were nothing. We were getting nowhere. Then poof. God rescued us from our innate brokenness. As the North African bishop Augustine said, Non possum non peccare. I cannot not sin.

Other traditions (like, say, Catholics, Methodists, and Pentecostals) have a long practice of saying, Yes, well, thats only the beginning. Being saved by God starts you on a path of sanctificationbeing changed by Godand you might even become close to perfect. Conveniently, this is called Christian perfectionism. Progress is not simply expected but sometimes guaranteed.

Then there are all those who drink deeply from the wells of our modern self-help culture. They take a very precious truth about faiththat we can grow closer to God and become more fully humanand transform it into a capitalistic imperative. EVERYTHING is possible if you attend this seminar! Or buy this serum. Or commit to this new series of habits. This form of perfectionism argues that we are capable of anything at the right emotional, mental, and physical price, and admitting to anything else is just low self-esteem. We are fine! No, not even that. We are perfect just as we are. Look within. We dont need to be saved at all. Everything you need is already inside of you.

Which one is it? Are we terrible? Perfectible? Already perfect?

We do not imagine that we will settle centuries of Christian debate about just how good we are, except that we believe it is somewhere between two poles: everything and nothing. Perfection is impossible, but transformation isnt. We can change a bit, if we really want to.

This is the choice embedded in every day from the moment we wake up. We will have to find enough momentum to reach for a faith that is never perfect, but good enough.

(Also, dear reader, please know that we have a sense of humor. So we are laughing every time we describe good enough as implying a gentle meh. We love God. We simply know that we will not be joining a monastic order anytime soon and will have to figure out a reasonable spiritual plan given how much Netflix we are watching.)