Striving for Perfection or Keeping It Real?

I had an interesting conversation with Pro recently, among other things, on why, as Kanye West once famously said, "you can rap about anything except for Jesus" in the secular world. An examination of secular hip-hop shows that these rappers follow a variety of things other than Christianity, like the Five Percenters/Nation of Gods and Earths, Rastafarianism, or even ancient Egyptian spirituality. Pro's thought was that Christianity isn't as popular among rappers, or among others who can relate to urban culture, because Christianity might feel like a closed door to them. (Check back next week for an article on my interview with Pro.)

Specifically, he noted that some Christians may be presenting themselves as never slipping, always perfect in their lives and relationships with the Lord--a goal people outside of the church may think they can never reach, so why bother trying? 

This sentiment was also expressed by The Ambassador on his recent appearance on Day7.tv, which I wrote about this week. During that mini-concert, he confessed that he once felt he had to make a major transformation in his life, to become a "certain kind of person" to be able to be a Christian. And I have to admit that I have been frustrated in my own faith from time to time, upset that I could not bring my life to the perfection that I thought I was witnessing in others' lives.

Though clearly there are changes one undergoes to follow God, realistically, we are the same people making some of the same mistakes. In other words, not perfect. We may not be killing anyone or having affairs, but we are not saints who sleep on clouds at night. Some of us may still be gossipping about others at work; or telling "little white lies" to avoid spending time with certain people; or a little too in love with a new car, plasma screen TV, or iPod, or any of a number of things that are not appropriate behaviors under God's watchful eyes. I'm not saying that we enjoy doing these things on the regular, but we may catch ourselves being out of order from time to time, and realize that we are doing something wrong that needs to be fixed. 

Ecclesiastes 11:4, which discusses the uncertainties of life, captures the problem of perfection: "Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest." (New Living Translation) If we are busy striving for perfection, rather than reaching out to others where we are right now, we miss countless opportunities to harvest souls for the Lord. 

Are we letting others curious about Christianity know that we are not perfect, and that we are indebted to the Lord for redemption from the sins, no matter how small, that we still sometimes commit? Are we keeping it real, or are we striving for pefection, to the detriment of glorifying the Lord in a way that others can access? Perfection in humans is a prideful state. Keeping it real when you talk about your life and your relationship with God humbles you and enables God to do his work through you.