I can do it better than you…seriously, I can.

I can do it better than you…seriously, I can.

This is a statement I am really trying to work on right now. I mean I know what I want, I know how I want it done, I know what the outcome will look like if I do it. Why should I take the time to teach, coach, evaluate, worry, stress, care, reason with, fail with anyone else? I’ve already been through that process and it drives me nuts. You probably won’t do it right anyways. Forget it, I’ll do it. Ya, that means I can’t spend time with anyone or study the Word or do what God told me to do right now. That’s ok…I can do those later.

But what about:

• Looking prideful?
• Being a control freak?
• No one else learning how to do it?
• Denying what God is telling someone else to do?
• The way Jesus didn’t do everything?
• Limiting your impact?

Lately I’ve been a perfectionist. I want everything on Thursday nights to be perfect. I want my meetings to have a perfect discussion (with only my ideas being accepted). I want events to go as planned, without any room for mess-ups…or improvement. I want people to stop bothering me so that I can get done what I need to get done perfectly.

As a leader, God presents what I’m really supposed to be doing:

[My] responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ, until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ (Ephesians 4:12-13, NLT).

Therefore, according to God’s Word, me being a perfectionist goes against my purpose as a leader. In fact, it doesn’t even fulfill my calling. Great. What do I do now? This sucks. (Seriously, that what I said!) I was then reminded of a quote from one of my ministry heroes Craig Groeschel,

If you delegate tasks you are developing followers but if you delegate responsibility you are developing leaders.

When you are a perfectionist and say “I can do it better” instead of equipping others you:

• Lose hard working people around you. “Perfectionism isn’t attractive.”
• Tell God that you are in control instead of Him.
• Become stuck in a vicious cycle of you doing it instead of a happy cycle of others teaching others how to do it.
• Tell people you know better than God what’s best for their life.
• Ignore the fact that Jesus could’ve done it better…but He enabled others to do it.
• Limit the influence your organization could have. Things stay small when leaders think they need to do it all (hey that rhymed!).

Here’s what Tony Morgan says about this:

When we choose to do it ourselves, we’re taking the easy way out. It’s harder to find someone else, train them, coach them and check up on them. In other words, we’re basically admitting we’d rather not do the hard work that could ultimately lead to better results.

I need to suck it up and do what God is telling me to do…the hard way. Then, I will be free to do what He is telling me to do.