“For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise,”

Hebrews 10:36 NKJV

So I went shooting today, and….

It wasn’t the best day. Even though I knew that going in, since I had taken a couple of weeks off, it still frustrated me today that I was doing “badly”. It didn’t help that every once in a while, some rounds were good. But a majority of them were like the two rounds above.

I got so frustrated with myself that I was like, “God, why am I even doing this? It’s not like I’m good. I can’t even be consistent.”

God asked me, “Are you trying to to be consistently good or consistent?”

I was taken aback because I thought was the same thing. But what God said next blew my mind.

“The key to consistency isn’t perfection, but perseverance. You can be perfect once, but to be consistent, you have to keep going even when you’re not perfect.”

I was so shocked by God’s definition of consistency that I checked out the definition of consistency myself.

Consistent: agreeing or accordant; compatible; not self-contradictory; constantly adhering to the same principles, course, form, etc; steady; even; holding firmly together.

None of those sentences had the word perfect. Consistency isn’t related to perfection. No one was asking me to be consistently perfect. I put the pressure on myself to consistently shoot good rounds. In all actuality, all I had to do was consistently shoot. I just had to keep going and learn.

I know I may have talked about perfection and consistency before, but I struggle with it. So many times in life I’ve seen others feel and felt the need myself to be consistently good or perfect at something. Being consistent in health and exercise, education, work, and even in a spiritual sense, we strive to be so perfect and good all the time. Then when we fail we get frustrated with ourselves, others, and/or the situation so much we end up quitting. It was just too hard. But we forget, being consistent/constant, is a struggle unto itself.

Doing the same thing over and over again, training and teaching yourself something until it becomes habit, is a task that’s hard enough. Why are we adding being “good or perfect” to that? Why are we invalidating the process of continuing to the next step because it’s not up to our standards? Who is setting these standards?

I know God says that we’re complete in Him. Our completion isn’t based on if we do a certain activity perfectly or if we’re consistently good. God didn’t ask for consistent perfection, but He asks for the perseverance to do His will. Let’s not add to that and instead, let’s praise God that with Him made the next step. Let’s do what He says. He’s cheering us on more than we know and see.