Performing, Pretending, and Pleasing

Believers need to know who they are “in Christ.” The Bible states that when we are born again we becomes “new creatures in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). But, when we have not taken the time to discover who we are “in Christ” then we live life insecure and lacking confidence in who we really are. We spent time proving ourselves (see yesterday’s blog) and justifying our behaviour. Worse, we live in insecurity and try to be who others want us to be living up to other’s expectations and demands. This results in us wasting our lives posing, pretending, posturing, performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving ourselves. Yet, in doing all of these things, we will never find our real self.

Recently Bob Dylan won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. This is a man who is well known and highly respected by many. But, this is not really who he was. He changed his named many years ago. He was born and raised as Robert Zimmerman and later, when people began to be drawn to his music and poetry , changed is name to Bob Dylan. However, changing his name didn’t change who he was. Inside he is still Robert Zimmerman or maybe not. Maybe inside he has internal titles and names that he calls himself… that define who he really is.

We all see ourselves as different than the person we present to the world regardless of our known name. Maybe we have not changed our name – maybe we have. But regardless of what we call ourselves and who we present ourselves to be to the world nothing changes inside. We have names we call ourselves inside – failure, stupid, idiot, inadequate, fool, jerk, victim, socially unacceptable, unloved, rejected, insecure… and on and on the names go. And, in spite of our inner self-image we rename ourselves on the outside and thus waste our lives posing, pretending, posturing, performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving ourselves to others.

To end this vicious and pointless cycle of pretending and putting on a mask we need to take the time to visit inside ourselves. As born again believers we need to invite the Holy Spirit to show us who we really are as a child of God. We need to discover who we are “in Christ.” We need to discover that Jesus calls us His friend; that in God’s sight we are ‘the beloved;’ that we are a child of God; the ‘apple of His eye;’ and that we are accepted and forgiven.

We need to discover what God thinks about us and then, with that foundation, dig and find out who we are “in Christ.” Once we know that we are loved unconditionally and that His love will never change we can then have the courage to dig into who we are and why we do what we do… with His help, of course. Then we will begin to discover the real “me” and even have the courage to boldly change how you live and how you express the real you to those you relate to. Only then will you not worry about being rejected by others because you will deeply know the acceptance of Jesus who created you.

So, it is time to stop wasting our lives posing, pretending, posturing, performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving ourselves. It is time to discover the real you and learn to express who you really are so that the world can discover the wonderful “you” that God created without all the masks we tend to wear to protect ourselves. It is hard work – but it is seriously worth the effort.