working for intervarsity, it would be impossible for me to seperate who i am from what i do… and to do so would be a heinous offense to the point of rending all i do void. seriously, if i do not live the gospel i preach, then my time is pointless–if i do all things, but do not have love, forget about all i think i am building.

this gets to be an amazing conversation when you consider just how much our world would try to convince us of our worth through doing. you are worth as much as the size of your house, the price of your car, the salary of your job. or what about finding our worth in how much we actually do… every time we tell someone we can’t do something because we are “busy” we are telling them we can’t do it because in actually we are “important.” business therefore becomes a synonym for important.

one of my favorite authors, henri nouwen, spent his life marinating in this topic and tackling the great deception of our age–your worth is found in what you do. nouwen settled on the term false self to describe the person we become when we give in to such a lie. actually, we don’t become this false self, as much as we create a diversion from our real selves for people to look at… it is literally as if we don’t believe our real selves will hold any real value in this “what have you done?” world we live in.

i have a picture in my head that captures…

picture cardboard cutouts (the ones that usually are movie stars, sports athletes, and famous characters) that teenagers used to have in their rooms… the ones that put han solo 5 inches taller than he is, hair perfect, and the outfit amazing.

now picture yourself with a your very own cardboard cutout. you have your favorite outfit on, your couldn’t have styled your hair any better, and not a single blemish due to some fancy photoshop action. picture yourself going through your day carrying that badboy in front of you, always making sure to keep it in between yourself and the people you interact with. people compliment you on how you look, and you thank them. your cardboard cutout actually becomes incredibly gifted–is there a problem? no big deal, you got it. they need an answer? your cutout knows everything. in fact, you get so used to being amazing and competent, relevant in any situation, that you get to the point where you won’t go outside or interact with anyone unless you have cardboard-you to buffer between you and the world. but is that cutout really you?

i often wonder what would happen if for just a little bit we all agreed to lay our cutouts/false selves aside to engage in real, vulnerable interaction. how amazing would that be to see the people you love and respect for who they really are? take off the make-up, drop the cardboard, and share deeply the real you. i have a feeling the domino-effect would be stunning. we live in a world so desperate for real they would flock to drink deeply of this display of authenticity.

so yeah, these days if you look at me hard enough you will notice a shadowy figure in the background–and yes, thats the real me. someone who is scared of what people think of him, who wants to be great, but doesn’t trust his own motives. who loves to serve people, but also holds that service against people but leveraging it against them as debt. my best days i hope ruthlessly for people, my worse i tear people down to feel better about myself. like the paintings i do, i hope you look at me and ponder, explore, figure out. my biggest fear is that i will never truly be known.

and that’s just at first glance.