Perfection Through Imperfection

I just graduated my second and last child from homeschooling. You may ask yourself, “Homeschooling, eh? You must be one of those perfect mothers: organized and perfectly sane?” That would be a big fat no! I’m as far away from perfect as you can possibly be. And sanity? That’s a whole other story.

I never had an inborn desire to homeschool my kids. In fact, it was probably as far away from my mind as anything. I thought homeschoolers were weird and kind of like hippies. I thought all the women grew their hair really long and ground their own wheat. I thought, to homeschool, I would have to be a farmer and live off the land and live in long denim skirts. I found out homeschooling is nothing like this. I found out that there were lots of homeschoolers who lived in California and never ground an ounce of wheat, ever.

Why did I homeschool? Well, to be perfectly honest, because God told me to. Try arguing with that. But seriously, that’s the truth. I wasn’t going to homeschool. God told me to do it.

I look back over my years of homeschooling and I can see the benefits for my children. But what I really see, is the benefit it held for me. Sure, my kids got one on one attention from one of only two people in this world who loves them completely. And sure, they got a curriculum, adjusted to their individual pace. And sure, I got to teach them about Jesus Christ and who He was. But many of the lessons were for me.

I got to walk with God, intimately. I didn’t have all the answers. In fact, I had hardly any answers. I didn’t feel adequate to teach my children to read and write. Apparently, God thought I could. But that’s just the thing. God doesn’t ask for perfection from us. In fact, He always chose the deficient, the problem people to do His work. That’s what He found in me: imperfect, really deficient, wholly unorganized person to do the work.

He was showing me something. He was showing me Who He was. He was showing me what He does, how He works. He was telling me over and over, in different ways and situations. “You don’t do the work, I do. You just rely on Me. I do it for you.”

And that’s what I see, looking back over my years as a homeschooling mom: the worst candidate to homeschool, is asked to homeschool, because they are in fact the worst candidate to homeschool.

And I think that carries over to the Christian life. God calls us to Him. Not because we are perfect and nice people. Not because we are sinless, but because we are sinful. He calls us to Himself, because firstly, we are sinners, in desperate need of a Savior. And the whole issue of salvation has nothing to do with us. Jesus Christ paid the price (with His life). He paid the debt, He bore our sins on Himself.

And then, once we are saved, He calls us again, to let Him do the work again, through us. He asks us to do things, not because we are good at it, but because He wants to work through us. Like Moses who had a speech impediment, that’s the guy God would use to speak to Egypt, to let His people go. Rahab was a harlot (a nice term for prostitute), she would be in Jesus biological line, making her His great, great, great (I’m not sure how many greats there should be), grandmother. A harlot would bring forth the sinless Messiah.

Perfection doesn’t need God. Imperfection does. God wants us to need Him because He is perfect. He wants to work through us. He shows the world, through us, who He is and what He does. His perfection is revealed, through our imperfection. And that’s exactly what God did through me, as I homeschooled my kids. He worked through me and I was the perfect candidate because I had no idea what I was doing. His perfection was revealed through my imperfection. And that’s what He calls all of us to do: allow His perfection to be revealed in our imperfection.