According to Genesis 17:1, when God first establishes a covenant with Abraham, God tells him, “Walk before me, and be tamim.” It’s one of those ancient Hebrew words whose meaning has been debated for centuries. No one really knows for certain what the word implies.

However, since it is used elsewhere in the Bible to describe an animal fit to be offered as a sacrifice, because it is without flaw or blemish, the word is usually taken to mean “perfect” or “blameless.” “Walk before me, and be perfect.” The problem with this translation is that, if God’s covenant requires us to be “perfect,” then it would seem as if the Almighty is asking something of us that we will never be able to achieve. After all, none of us is perfect, nor can we be.

But more recent interpreters, for a combination of linguistic and theological reasons, have backed away from the notion of God demanding that Abraham—and by implication, the rest of us—be perfect and without flaw. Contemporary scholars take the word tamim to mean something more like “whole-hearted.”

In other words, it’s not perfection that God desires from Abraham, it is integrity. God wants us to strive to be true to the core of who we are. Thus, God is not saying “Be flawless,” or “Don’t ever make a mistake,” what God is saying is “Be whole” … “Be complete” … “Be who I created you to be.”

Think of it this way—when we do something wrong, or when we make a mistake, we do not cease to be human. What we lose in those instances is our integrity, our sense of wholeness. Sin creates a situation where our hearts are divided, and we are at war within ourselves. As Paul writes to the Romans, “I do not understand my own actions. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.”

This is where grace enters the picture. Through Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, we are made whole once more. That is why it is often called the atonement, because we experience “at-one-ment” again—both with God and within ourselves. Therefore, we can stand before the Almighty with all of our faults and frailties and know that we are already loved and accepted. “To be whole” means that we don’t have to pretend that we are perfect, and we don’t have to fear that we will be rejected for falling short of that standard.

The point is that life is not a trap set for us by God, so that God can then condemn us for failing. Neither is it a spelling bee, where no matter how many words you have spelled correctly, if you make one mistake you are disqualified. God is not against us, God is for us. And if we are brave enough to love one another, strong enough to forgive one another, and generous enough to reach out to others in times of need, then we will have achieved exactly what God has asked of us.

As a pastor, I perform a fair amount of marriage counseling. In fact, over the past twenty years, I think I’ve encountered just about every problem that a couple could possibly face. But there is one marital conflict that keeps resurfacing with such regularity that I sometimes feel as if I am watching different actors and actresses audition from the same script. The conflict is this—something that had once been a source of attraction has now become the source of aggravation.

For example, she will say, “I fell in love with him because he was so outgoing. I tend to be rather shy and quiet, but he was always the life of the party. Only now, when we’re at a social gathering, I find myself resenting the fact that he’s having such a good time, while I just sit there in the corner.”

Or he will say, “What initially attracted me was how relaxed she seemed to be about life. I’m so compulsive when it comes to things like punctuality, while she is more flexible and easygoing. But now, I’m fed up with always having to wait for her. We’re never on time for anything.”

The bottom line in both of these scenarios is that the person is suddenly wishing that their spouse were more like them. But the irony is that they first fell in love with the other person precisely because they were not like them. In other words, they were attracted to each other because they were so different … and now they are aggravated by each other for exactly the same reason—they are so different!

It’s no great secret, of course, that opposites attract. Indeed, it’s very rare for someone to wind up marrying a mirror image of themselves. Part of the reason for this is that we tend to be attracted to people who have characteristics that we lack. By marrying them, we are secretly hoping to pick up some of these qualities, and thus become a more complete person.

The problem is that people with different personalities don’t always fit together as neatly as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes we rub each other the wrong way, which is usually when the marital friction begins. And it’s precisely at this point that many couples make a crucial mistake. They decide that the best way to minimize this friction is to try and change the other person.

Bad move. In the first place, I’m convinced that we come into this world already hardwired with a personality. It’s as much a part of us as our DNA, and so it’s not likely to change—at least not radically. And in the second place, why would you even want to change the other person? After all, you fell in love with them because they were different from you. So why risk destroying the very thing you first loved?

Rather than complaining about our differences—or worse still, trying to eliminate them by changing the other person—I’m persuaded that a good marriage requires that we be different from one another. In fact, that may be the reason you got married to each other in the first place.