DROP THE ACT
Growing up, my church would put on big plays every year, especially around Christmas and Easter. It would be a big production and for a series of evenings, people from our church would invite their families, friends, and neighbors to watch a play, usually set in the Middle East, performed by a bunch of people from the Midwest. You can only imagine how difficult it likely was for audiences to distinguish what was real from fake. Maybe not, but there were live donkeys.
Like every good play, our church plays had auditions. As I recall, the same guy would play Abraham and Jesus in the same play, but I’m sure no one else noticed. When I was about seven or eight, our church was putting on an Easter play and they needed some younger kids to play different roles. My brother and I both auditioned along with a bunch of other kids. They were planning some scenes where the setting was a crowded market, so they needed a lot of kids. Getting a part was going to be a breeze.
My brother ended up getting cast as Isaac. He had lines and everything. You’re probably wondering, “Stephen, what part did you land? Young Jesus? The boy who brought the loaves and fishes to Jesus to multiply? A boy in the crowd?” Nope, I was cast as “Dead boy.” My job was to lay as limp as possible while my dad, carried me to Jesus (aka Jason the usher). All I had to do was lay completely still and then when Jesus touched me, I was to open my eyes and jump out of my dad’s arms and run off stage. That was the promising start to my acting career – acting dead and getting off stage as soon as I wasn’t.
Here’s the point. You don’t have to go to one of my church’s (they don’t do those plays anymore) low budget plays or even to Hollywood to find people acting. In all likelihood, you can probably take a walk across the room and take a peek in the mirror. There is something deeply imbedded in us that feels the need to perform and create a reality that is fabricated in our own mind’s script. A script that’s primary role is to posture the character of ourselves in a shining light – someone who has it all together, always “looks the part,” and a person that everyone likes.
Think about it. We answer questions like we are reciting lines.
How are you? "I'm good...just busy. You?"
How's your marriage? "Oh, we're doing good. Just keeping up with the kids. You know how it is."
What's new? "Not too much. Same old same old."
How's work? "It's pretty hectic right now, but it pays the bills, ya know."
What's on your mind? "Not a lot..."
Do you hear what I’m saying? It is so easy for us to become disconnected from reality to the point where we are walking around like robots repeating the same answers to the same questions. Of course there is a time for a quick answer and not everyone who asks “How are you?” should hear about our latest negative thought patterns and deepest secrets. That’s not the point. The point is that at one point or another, consciously or subconsciously, many of us have fallen into a cycle of feeling as if we are just someone cast in a play to be someone we are not. To be an actor on a stage without lights that looks a whole lot like our living room, our workplace, our church, and every other square inch we inhabit. Our lives are too often void of authenticity.
Is the person that you project to the outside world a reflection of what is inside of you?
Have you ever felt like a fraud?
Do you ever feel like your life is an audition for a role that you know you aren’t qualified to play?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, don’t worry, you are not alone! Long before you or I felt this way, the first humans ever did as well (see Genesis 1-3) . When God made Adam and Eve, he made them in his own image (Genesis 1:27) and put them in a garden and walked among them, giving them unfiltered access and relationship to God himself. The Bible says that Adam and Eve were both naked and unashamed (Genesis 2:25). Sure this is the verse I used to write in newlyweds’ wedding cards, but it also has great significance in the story of man, God, sin, and ultimately redemption through Jesus. You see, Adam and Eve were both naked and unashamed – in fact, they were unaware of their nakedness (I’ve seen some elderly gentlemen in the men’s locker room at a local gym with this same unashamedness, but that is different. Very different). In the garden, Adam and Eve were completely themselves and they were at complete ease and at peace.
It all changed when Eve was convinced by a slithery little snake (aka Satan) to look at something outside of herself and the perfect relationship between her and God to find value, fulfillment, and meaning. She gave the serpent the microphone and allowed him to distort who God is and led her to believe that God was withholding what was good from her. She took the bait and she ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (one of two trees God specifically told them to avoid), a decision that communicated an internal belief that she knew better than God what was best for her life. A decision that led her husband, Adam, to eat the same fruit. A decision that instantaneously built a divide between them and the unfiltered presence of God. A decision that ushered in sin, pain, sickness, toil, death – and worst of all, separation from God. Take a look at what happened next.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” - Genesis 3:7-13 NIV (emphasis added*)
The moment they ate from the tree, disobeying God, they became aware of their nakedness. It wasn’t until they, in a way, took their lives into their own hands that they felt shame. They hid from God and sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness (*someone needs to name a clothing company, “Fig”). God, knowing exactly where they were geographically, asked them, “Where are you?” A question that likely caused the relational distance they were now feeling, a distance that caused them to hide from God, to sink in.
Where do we come in to play? This story from thousands of years ago set into motion a cycle that we find ourselves caught in far too often. We, like Adam and Eve, find ourselves falling short of who we were created to be. Sin has distorted our standing with God. Adam and Eve felt shame for the first time that day, a feeling that many of us feel on a daily basis. That shame, a sense of falling short, often causes a gap filled with insecurity to set in our hearts. When we fail to address this, we, like Adam and Eve, hide and do anything in our power to cover the parts of us that we are ashamed of. We create a false projected self that acts as a mask covering the shame – and that is the character we wake up and choose to play every day. Our character’s aim is to find significance, value, and to be a person that is worth loving – and unfortunately, at the end of the day, we feel that we botched our lines. The cycle continues.
Self: True Self (created in the image of God)
Shame: Gap – Insecurity – Feeling as if I am not enough
False Self: The act – the mask – the character we play – aims to cover the shame
I have good news. The answer isn’t saving up for acting classes. You can throw away the silly glasses with the dangling mustache. You don’t need it anymore. God sees you exactly as you are and loves you. He doesn’t expect you to have it all together. He doesn’t desire you to look like a whole and complete person. He desires you to be whole, complete, and mature and that cannot happen if you are unwilling to remove the masks and own up to who you are, scars and all. You have to be the person you are before you can become the person God created you to be.
God is not looking for us to “put our lives together.” That is like putting a puzzle together, not only without the original picture but also with a bunch of pieces that you have borrowed from other people’s puzzles. God doesn’t even need the box to know what the puzzle of your life is supposed to look like, because he created you. He holds all the pieces and if you are willing to sit with him, unhurried, He will slowly make you into the image he created you in – His image. The God who knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-14) will once again knit you together in His very own image. That process is called sanctification. Sanctification cannot be rushed or manipulated and is a life-long process that can only be led by the Holy Spirit. It is a grace-filled process because Jesus did what none of us could ever do, live a perfect life. It is grace-filled because Jesus paid the price of our sin on the cross. It is grace-filled because Jesus rose again, conquering death, sin, shame, and the grave. It is grace-filled because we literally cannot do it on our own and in our own power.
We can show up to our lives as we are. In surrendering our lives to God, we are surrendering ourselves to the process of sanctification – a process that doesn’t require any acting on our part. We can step off the stage, throw away the lines we thought we needed to memorize, take off the silly costume and walk authentically with Jesus. There is no need to project ourselves as someone we are not. We just aren’t yet and God’s timing is not rushed. Just walk with Him.
I don’t know what role you have been auditioning for, but that part has been erased from the script. Our acting is as bad as mine must have been in my church play, and in some ways, the part is pretty much the same – just show up and let your Father carry you to Jesus.