Tammy On Tuesday ~ The Truth Challenge

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Fiction is defined as an invention or fabrication as opposed to fact.

Back in college I knew a guy who we nicknamed “Fiction”.   I remember we would sit around a table in the cafeteria and he would tell us stories. He told us once that he personally owned a camouflaged Hummer stretch limousine. He said he drove around in it just for fun but he couldn’t ever bring it on campus. It’s been a while and it’s hard to remember all that he told us but I recall him mentioning being in the FBI and being a secret agent. He had an arsenal of weapons in a secret door under his bed in his dorm room. The stories were huge. It seemed like a lot of work for him to make up these stories and even harder to make them all correlate.

He often got himself into trouble when people would ask about how his stories contradicted. In those awkward moments, he would suddenly remember he was late for class or something and cut the conversation short. The crazy part is that he expected us to believe every word. I would often leave a conversation with him and wonder to myself…does he believe all of these stories? Has he come to a place where the lies he makes up are so much more appealing to him than his real life that he has chosen to just believe them for himself? His efforts seemed exhausting.

Fiction. The sad part is I never knew him by any other name. My guess is that he thought if he just made himself seem more impressive, people would like him more.

Thinking back on it now, it’s tragic.

Honestly, there are times that it’s tempting to create a better version of me for others to see. It seems many of us struggle with just putting the real “me” out there.  I’m waiting for the day that Facebook develops a quiz to measure the gap between our “Facebook-selves” and reality.   I mean they have a quiz for everything else.

Facebook has become the canvas on which we can display our art. We can paint a picture of ourselves that’s shinier, more intriguing, more likable, more successful. All the while we neglect the person that we really are.

Why do we do it? Why do we put all our effort and energy into painting a better picture of ourselves instead of actually GROWING ourselves in Truth?   Is it in hopes that maybe, just maybe, our fabricated me will be “good enough”? So that people will like us? So that we can be something more…even if means keeping others at a distance so they don’t see who we truly are? Like the situation with Fiction, it sounds exhausting…and tragic.

And, what’s more, God sent Christ to die for us so that we don’t have to waste our time pretending to be okay. He wants to make us truly OKAY.   When we accept Christ as our Savior, we can begin to shed the façade and just live in the understanding that we are fully accepted by Him.  THIS is truth.

I was sitting in a video Bible study several weeks ago with Matt Chandler called “Recovering Redemption” and in it, Matt said something that really encouraged my heart and challenged me to live authentically.

He said to believers, “Your Father delights in you (you right now)…not in a better version of you.”

What a freeing and truly unbelievable statement! Oh that God would give me the understanding to embrace that truth and live in it fully!

It’s my desire to challenge anything, any motive, any effort in me that is not based in the truth. I’ve asked God to help me to do it. The Bible says:

For You are great and do wondrous deeds; You alone are God. Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, And will glorify Your name forever.  Psalm 86:10-12

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Psalm 25:5

For I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.  Psalm 26:3

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.  Psalm 143:8

I realize this effort to put aside the fiction in my life will be an ongoing exercise. In fact, I fight against it in the ins-and-outs of my life daily.

Last night I sat down with a new friend.   We had planned to meet last week. I put it on my schedule and I was looking forward to it. However, leading up to our time together my to-do list got the best of me. Just thirty minutes before I planned to leave I looked down and realized I was still in my work out clothes. My hair was a mess. No time for make up. I headed out the door and jumped in the car.

PINIMAGEI had already begun rehearsing my apologies for my appearance when I looked down at the steering wheel and noticed two of the fingers on my left hand had little to no polish on them while the others shone bright pink. I thought to myself, “Okay, Tammy! This is NOT a good first impression! Oh, and yeah, you’re a pastor’s wife…shouldn’t you look a lot more put together?”

But then I began to think about what really mattered. Did my new friend care if I came completely put together and polished? Did it matter to her that I come dressed to the nines? Turns out, it didn’t! In fact, she was refreshed in knowing I was more interested in being who Christ intends for me to be than working hard to create an image I wanted her to see.

(I believe I should insert a disclaimer here: This doesn’t mean I plan to stop combing my hair or showering. I’m sure this is a relief to many.)

After several hours of good conversation, I returned to my car and felt confirmed that there’s nothing better than just being you and living in obedience to the truth of God’s Word.  It’s quite freeing!

How much distance is there between the “you” others see and the ”you” God sees? Are you willing to stop putting excessive effort into “your image” and begin to let God have His way in you?

Today, maybe it’s time to put a stop to fiction and let God’s Truth have its way.