I'm so tired of all the trials that come in this life. Both internal as external. I just want to be happy and content.
Well, trials can be tiring. Very, sometimes. I wonder, though, if just wanting to be happy and content isn't aiming kinda' low, as life objectives go. I can think of a great many things that are much, much better, much more important to a good life, than happiness. Truth, integrity, courage, loyalty, persistence, grace, mercy, wisdom, freedom - these are all far more important to life than happiness. But many times the pursuit and maintenance of these things requires that happiness be sacrificed. Think of the young men who gave their lives in the Second World War, freeing Europe from the terrible, death-dealing grip of the Nazis. They weren't happy fighting against the Nazis, but it was more important by far that they fight (and die) than be happy. Think of the firefighter who must enter a burning building to save someone. He's not thrilled to have to risk burning to death in doing so, but it is better that he run this risk and preserve life than to shrink back in preservation of his personal happiness and let someone expire in the flames. I'm sure you can think of many other similar examples where the pursuit of better, nobler things ruins happiness.
Even contentment conflicts with happiness. The drug addict may be happy for a time while the drugs he's taking overwhelm him with euphoria, but he is not content. If he were content, drugs would not be necessary. And the more he takes drugs, the less content he is, his hunger for drugs growing rather than being satisfied. The disloyal husband cheating on his wife with another woman may, in the moments of sexual interaction with his mistress, feel happy, but he is not content knowing he is a low-down sneak treacherously betraying his wife. And the more he plays the adulterer, the less content with himself he'll be - until he sears his conscience into insensitivity. The resulting moral numbness when this happens, though, isn't contentment. And so on.
Maybe, then, you're tired, in part, because you're chasing after the wrong thing. Happiness is fundamentally circumstantial and circumstances are always changing in ways big and small. And when they do, our happiness is often one of the first things to evaporate.
What's even the point of maturing in Christ if we will never attain perfection in this life.
Well,
he's the point, brother. Maturing in Christ is the avenue through which you come to know and enjoy
him more. The point isn't just to mature, to obtain perfection (whatever that is). This is empty, frustrating moralism, at bottom. No, biblical Christianity isn't moralism but
fellowship with God through, and in, Christ:
Philippians 3:7-10 (NASB)
7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
10 that I may know Him...
I feel so tired of trying everyday and then failing and then trying again and failing and repeat. I just want to be perfect, so that I don't have to be so incredibly insecure about so much.
Again, perfection isn't the goal of Christian living; knowing and enjoying Christ is. Actually, you are, in Christ,
already perfect, which is a necessary requirement for being accepted by God. Every saved child of God is so because they have "put on Christ" by trusting in him as their Savior and Lord and have been clothed in him, in his perfect righteousness, and thus justified before God. Paul goes into a lot of detail about this in his letter to the church at Rome.
God sees all of his children, the born-again, in Christ's perfect righteousness and accepts them. As a result, the child of God is freed from the impossible pursuit of perfection, having already obtained perfection, spiritually, in their Savior.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB)
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Romans 3:28 (NASB)
28 For we maintain that a man is justified (declared righteous by God) by faith apart from works of the Law.
Romans 4:5 (NASB)
5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,
Titus 3:5-7 (NASB)
5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 so that being justified (declared righteous by God) by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
But all of this is so that you can be reconciled to God and enjoy Him, not become mired in failure and frustration as you attempt to do the impossible by trying to be perfect.
