Photo by Motoki Tonn on Unsplash

For many years of my life, I believed a very powerful lie. 

The lie went something like this: In order to be loved by God, it was necessary that I worked hard and never messed up.

The math equation would look like this: Hard Work + Perfection = God’s love.

Underlying this lie was a big fear of failure. I was afraid that if people saw the real me, they could never love me. If people really knew how weak I was and the daily struggles I faced, they couldn’t love me. 

Worse, I cast that fear of failure onto God as well! I believed that if I messed up, made a mistake, or did something wrong, then somehow God looked at me differently. I viewed His love as conditional on how good I was and how much I kept everything under control and wrapped up neatly.  

This crippling fear was marked by shame of my weaknesses and imperfections. It hindered me from being vulnerable to others and God. This lack of authenticity, while I thought it might protect me, only left me more isolated and alone.

And I think many of us fear our flaws. And we all have them! We struggle to be authentic, to be real and to embrace connection with others.

While we so desperately and deeply want to be seen and loved, we hold back and armour up out of fear of people seeing our imperfections. And this robs us of connection and joy.

We try so hard to do it all on our own instead of accepting God’s grace. His grace transforms our faults into a new creation.

The reality is that our imperfections do not make us less loved or beautiful. 

Recently, I was introduced to the Japanese art form of Kintsugi. Translated as “golden joinery,” Kintsugi illuminates the damage in pottery with gold. Instead of getting rid of broken pottery, it embraces the damage as a necessary history of the object. 

Like the broken object that is repaired, so too does God desire to repair our imperfections for His greater glory.

“But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Do not fear your faults. Do not be stuck in the shame of your story. 

You are a treasure to the Lord! God loves you in your imperfections. Allow today the saving and perfect grace of the Lord to love you and make your imperfections beautiful. 

Patrick is a beloved son of the Father who desires to use his gifts to build up the Kingdom of God. You can read more of his writing on his blog.