Imperfections

Exodus 10-12 NKJV
10 Then Moses said to the LORD, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
11 So the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD? 12 Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”

Two things popped out at me when I read these verses.

1. God can work with all of our imperfections because He is God!

2. Our imperfections were given to us by God.

It's number 2 that I'd like to speak to today because I never thought of my imperfections as coming from God until I read this passage. I find great beauty and irony in this fact.

We, as a people, want to be perfect. We want to be the smartest, the best, the brightest. We want the perfect look. Just look at the amount of money spent on plastic surgery and cosmetics each year chasing a vision of perfection. Scientist are trying to figure out how to clone and recreate and you know once they master it there will be a standard by which cloning will be initiated. I don't know many people that would want to recreate something they deem imperfect or of no use to mankind.

I believe we were perfect once, before the fall, and we will be perfect again in eternity, according to God's vision of perfection. Until then, we each have faults or imperfections to deal with. But they don't have to be debilitating or ugly to us. They can be beautiful because we are uniquely created by a God himself and He alone chose what we would look like, sound like, and how our bodies would function in this life. There's beauty in just knowing that God knew you intimately before you came into existence and He can use all of us, the good and bad.

Of course, there's always things we do to ourselves that God didn't intend for us to do like overeating, bodily alterations, or any type of bodily abuse. I'm not speaking to those instances but rather the ones you were born with. Maybe it's a birthmark in the wrong location according to you. Or, maybe it's an physical or mental handicap. These things were given by God and just like everything He does, there is a purpose and beauty in them.

If nothing else, these imperfections draw us closer to Him as the world around us rejects us. When someone overcomes a handicap it can point to God's glory and power. There is a higher purpose, a divine plan, and beauty in all of us.

The next time I catch myself judging or feeling pity for myself or someone else, I hope I stop and try to see the beauty and purpose in God's creation. I hope I can see as God sees!