I’m trying to read through the Bible this year. The plan is easy: about 10-15 minutes per day. An Old Testament chapter. A New Testament chapter. A psalm. A proverb. This is the way most people do it, and I’m determined to maintain discipline in this area.

But I seem to be failing.

I keep getting behind, and then making unrealistic plans to get caught up, and then I’m so overwhelmed that I just busy myself with other things so that I don’t face the absurd catch up strategy that I’ve burdened myself with. I wanted to spend this year delighting in God’s word, but instead I’ve become saddled with the weight of my lack of discipline and my inability to check the right boxes for spiritual goodness.

I struggle with spiritual perfectionism. It comes from many years of legalistic tendencies where I struggle to see obedience to God as a joy and an honor and tend to see it instead as an opportunity to try to earn the salvation that He’s freely given. It’s an extremely difficult heart posture to overcome, and I often see it come through in the spiritual disciplines that I try to incorporate in my life.

Unfortunately, when one discipline goes haywire, it affects others. Prayer, for instance. I’ve realized that when I feel I’m failing at my Bible reading plan, I tend to avoid prayer, as if God won’t want to hear from me because I lost three weeks in Leviticus and can’t seem to make up the difference in a timely manner. In a sense, I’m attempting to hide from God like he’s an angry, disappointed father, although I know that’s a lie. This desire for spiritual perfection is really a cancer in my walk with Christ, because it keeps me from experiencing the joy and abundant life that Jesus came to provide for me. That rest and peace is right in front of me, that delight in God’s word, that life-giving truth, but I can’t see it for the list of rules that I impose upon myself. I identify with the Pharisees, except I do see Jesus for who He is.

I think for spiritual perfectionists like myself, the key is not to gauge my spiritual growth or God’s pleasure with how well I’m sticking to my reading plan. What if I focused instead on knowing true joy in His grace and mercy? It’s good to be devoted to the Lord and to place obedience at the forefront of my relationship with Him, but I can’t let that desire for obedience become a stick that I beat myself with. It stunts my growth, and it causes me to dread interactions with my compassionate, loving God. It distorts my view of how free His love really is. And deep down it creates a false reality where I view myself as a partner in His wholesale redemption of my soul.

I can’t hide from God, but more than that, I don’t need to try. He isn’t mad at me. He isn’t disappointed. He isn’t building a case against me to prove that I actually don’t deserve His love. None of us deserves it. All He is doing is loving me, for no reason except He wants to. He has always known that I’m a sinner who likes to take pride in rule following. He knows I stink at reading plans and keeping journals and making prayer lists and all the other things that “good” Christians are good at. All that has zero effect on His great compassion and desire to rescue me from myself and my sin.

I love His word. I love His truth. I love Him. And I love reading plans until they hurt my pride and cause me to avoid my Father who loves me. Reading God’s word doesn’t have to be a race, not for a slow kid like me. He loves me anyway, and I don’t need to convince Him He made the right choice when He plucked me from the fires of hell. He already knew that reading plans would not be my strong suit, and He covered me with the righteousness of Christ anyway.

If you struggle with spiritual perfectionism like I do, don’t let it make you a quitter. Keep picking up that Bible, even when you feel you’re behind. Keep praying. Keep making church an essential part of your life. And ask Him to help you remember that His love isn’t based on how quickly we make it through the book of Leviticus. That’s what I’m doing, and in this, I find some glowy glimpses of that joy that is a fruit of His spirit. Keep the faith, not by doing things perfectly, but by believing that His perfect love is sufficient.