Picture Perfect: When Life Doesn’t Line Up

by Amy Baker

Publisher:

New Growth Press

, 2014

Overview

As a culture, we have a love-hate relationship with perfectionism. We reward perfectionists for their insistence on setting high standards and their tireless efforts to achieve them. But psychologists link perfectionism with a host of problematic behaviors ranging from eating disorders to risk aversion to workaholism. Perfectionism is a crushing burden that can leave us angry, anxious, and paralyzed.

Is the solution just to “lighten up”? In Picture Perfect, counselor and author Amy Baker challenges the popular notion that perfectionists need to lower their standards. After carefully examining Scripture and drawing from 25 years of counseling experience, Baker concludes, “The problem is not that our standards are too high and we just need to lighten up. The problem is that God’s instruction to be perfect in Matthew 5:48 doesn’t lead us to see how desperately we need him and drive us to our perfect Savior.”

Helping readers to dig beneath the frustration of perfectionism, Baker exposes what drives our perfectionism and shows how Christ’s perfection changes our motives, beliefs, desires, fears, anxieties, and goals. Readers will discover that only God’s grace can transform the aching “not enough” of perfectionism into the overflowing abundance of faith.

Key Features

• Challenges the notion that perfectionists need to lower their standards
• Exposes what drives perfectionism and shows how Christ’s perfection changes us
• Helps readers discover God’s grace transforms perfectionism into abundant faith

Contents

• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part 1
• 1. I Love Perfection! I Hate Perfection!
• 2. Ian: Performance-Based Perfection
• 3. Linda: The Angry Mother-in-Law
• 4. Harmony: A Daughter Who Is Never Good Enough
• 5. Greg: The Defeated Perfectionist
• 6. Penny: Living for Jesus?
• Part 2
• 7. A Perfect Standard
• 8. Growing into Our Position
• 9. More Classes in God’s Academy
• 10. Satisfaction that Lasts More than a Moment
• Part 3
• 11. Paralyzed by Fear of Failure
• 12. A Spirit of Power, Love, and Self-control Instead of the Paralysis of Fear
• 13. Bryce and Angela: Two Ways of Trying to Look Good to Others
• 14. Lessons from a Humble Man
• 15. Learning to Handle Criticism
• 16. Converting Criticism into Blessing
• 17. The Weight of Guilt
• 18. Wallowing and False Guilt
• 19. Never at Rest
• 20. Resting
• 21. Evaluations that Lead to Shame
• 22. And When We Fail
• Discussion Questions
• Endnotes
• With Grateful Thanks

Praise for Picture Perfect

I have found in my own counseling ministry that perfectionism is a major problem that dominates the lives of too many Christians. It robs them of their joy in Christ and makes them difficult to live around. Dr. Amy Baker has poured into this critical work great wisdom that comes from years of her own personal counseling ministry. Her approach to this destructive problem is refreshingly insightful because she takes the sufficiency of God’s Word seriously. Not only does this enable her to unscramble the real problem biblically, but it also enables her to prescribe practical answers with scriptural insight.

—John D. Street, Chair of the MABC Graduate Program, The Master’s College; president, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC)

I’ve been a pastor and counselor for over twenty-five years now and this is a book I’ll be handing out! Christians sing about amazing grace, but too often still live by the law of their own hard work and perfectionistic striving. Amy’s done a great job tackling an issue that flies right in the face of the gospel and God’s grace but seldom gets addressed head-on or with the insights that Amy brings to this subject. She exposes not only the hub of the perfectionistic heart, but so many of the related sinful ‘spokes’ that are connected to this one heart issue guilt, fear, pride, anxiety, and heightened sensitivity to criticism. And she diagnoses and explains it all so well with practical examples and clear, biblical teaching. Amy doesn’t just point out the danger; she shows you where and how to get free and rest in God's grace. This book brings you back to the only perfect person our Savior, Jesus Christ.

—Brad Bigney, MDiv, Pastor, Grace Fellowship in Florence, KY; ACBC certified counselor; author of Gospel Treason: Betraying the Gospel with Hidden Idols

I am so thankful that Amy Baker has taken decades of counseling experience and turned it into this wonderfully helpful book. Loaded with Scripture and practical application, this book is just what you need to combat the bitter roots of perfectionism growing in your heart.

—Heath Lambert, Executive Director of The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (formerly, NANC); associate professor of Biblical Counseling at Southern Seminary and Boyce College; author of Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace

Product Details

• Title: Picture Perfect: When Life Doesn’t Line Up
• Author: Amy Baker
• Publisher: New Growth Press
• Print Publication Date: 2014
• Logos Release Date: 2025
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subject: Perfectionism (Personality trait) › Religious aspects--Christianity
• Resource ID: LLS:PICTUREPERFECT
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-07-03T17:49:19Z

About Amy Baker

Amy Baker, PhD, is the Ministry Resource Director at Faith Church (Lafayette, IN); Director of Counseling for Vision of Hope, a faith-based residential treatment program; Instructor and counselor at Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries; a council member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition: and the author of Getting to the Heart of Friendships; Picture Perfect:When Life Doesn't Line Up as well as several counseling minibooks. She and her husband Jeff have two children.