{"id":114,"date":"2010-10-28T14:35:02","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T18:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/the-perfect-way"},"modified":"2010-10-28T14:35:02","modified_gmt":"2010-10-28T18:35:02","slug":"the-perfect-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/the-perfect-way.html","title":{"rendered":"The perfect way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83524c19a69e20133f5695857970b alignright\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;\" title=\"Pathway-back\" alt=\"Pathway-back\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/6a00d83524c19a69e20133f5695857970b-320wi.jpg\" \/> &#8220;It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect&#8221; <\/em>(2 Samuel 22:33 NIV).<\/p>\n<p>Have you noticed that the harder you strive for perfection the more elusive it becomes? Focus on having\u00a0the perfect vacation, the perfect house, the perfect kids, the perfect spouse&#8230; and the more imperfect everything seems!<\/p>\n<p>It seems counter-intuitive, but when I stop focusing on achieving perfection and focus on pleasing\u00a0God, life seems more&#8230; well, perfect.<\/p>\n<p>My plans for life don&#8217;t include all the backroads and pitstops. I prefer taking the Interstate and getting to the destination quickly. I don&#8217;t even like taking bathroom breaks (Although, since I&#8217;ve entered my 5th decade this is changing somewhat).<\/p>\n<p>But God likes going off-road. He leads us into desert places and surprises us with an oasis. He lets us break down in the wilderness and sends an old farmer in a pickup to give us a ride into town. God&#8217;s ways are different than ours. His ways of perfecting us are not what we expect. They don&#8217;t seem so perfect at the time. But later, after you&#8217;ve been on His route for while, you get it.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tried both ways now. I&#8217;ve tried living my way, focused on a\u00a0destination called perfection and feeling the disappointment of constantly falling short. Now, I&#8217;m learning to live life trusting God. I believe that His ways are &#8220;higher&#8221; (Isaiah 55:9) and better than my ways.<\/p>\n<p>God&#8217;s way is perfect.\u00a0When I focus on following Him, He makes my way perfect too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect&#8221; (2 Samuel 22:33 NIV). Have you noticed that the harder you strive for perfection the more elusive it becomes? Focus on having\u00a0the perfect vacation, the perfect house, the perfect kids, the perfect spouse&#8230; and the more imperfect everything seems! It seems counter-intuitive,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061,1,2062],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}