Be Ye...And Then...Be Perfect

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48). The Greek word that gets translated into therefore in the above verse has a couple of different translations, including “and then.” So, you could read that verse as “Be Ye... and then... be perfect.” The most important thing we can do in this life is to be our true selves, just as fully and completely as we possibly can. Once we have given up being what we think we are supposed to be, or what everyone else seems to think we should be, and just strip away all of the fears and the doubts and the pretensions, then we are in the right place for perfection to happen. Perfection is not something that we can achieve on our own. What we can achieve is putting ourselves in a position to be perfected. We can do our best to tell the truth, and God will perfect our honesty. We can do our best to serve with love, and God will perfect our Charity. We can do our best to fear not but be believing, and God will help our unbelief and perfect our Faith. We can do our best to wade through grief and sorrow and pain and endure, and God will perfect our Hope. Instead of trying to be perfect, let’s first just try to be - be grateful, be truthful, be kind, be obedient. Once we’ve figured out how to be, then God can help us be perfect. It does us no good at all to hold back from doing something just because we will at first do it badly or imperfectly. We have to be first, weak and unsuccessful and imperfect and all, and then later we can be perfect.