There is nothing like getting slapped upside the head with your own hypocrisy. In the rankings of unpleasant things it is somewhere above having your leg rotting away with methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and just slightly below being eaten alive by rats. However, while I strongly advise avoiding those two scenarios, honesty requires that I acknowledge not only the benefits but the necessity of having our hypocrisy exposed even when it hurts.
It is the temptation and joy of every believer to indulge in complacency about our faith. We like thinking that we have figured out. The rules are simple, the requirement light, and our lives fall into a pattern of convenient obedience. If you are like me, you build a world where blatant sin is hard to come by. Things like killing, stealing, adultery, even gossip, if you are good enough at the game, become more troublesome than being good. Outward obedience becomes easy, and in fact, outward obedience becomes so important that you recoil at the thought of doing anything that would threaten your image of being the good Christian.
But it’s a trap.
Over the past five years, I have spent a lot of time building a social network designed to give me a platform from which to speak. I have been careful with what I post, with what I say, and with what I reveal. People see my work and they say, “Oh, you are edgy!”, “You are so brave to say that!”, and “Wow, I cannot believe how honest you are about these issues!” I have got to be honest with you, I love hearing all that. I love being able to shake people up by talking about things that intimidate so many others. The affirmation is wildly addictive.
But I haven’t been completely honest in my work, at least not as honest as I should be. For a long time now, I have been resisting the prompting to go deeper. If anything resisting is too mild of a word, more like kicking and screaming my protests as I am trying to claw my way free of God’s grasp on my life, and I have been pretty good at justifying it to myself. So many of you know so much about my life already, about things I have experienced that most women keep covered up, and yet, I am the one who will stand in the middle of room full of strangers and tell you the story of how my life was destroyed by violence and deceit. I will tell you have the hard years of being the divorced woman in church, and I will admit to the times of destitution while trying to raise my daughters. I will recount those moments when I defied God, daring him to show himself to be real in the wreckage of my life, and how he met there.
I could do that because I locked down all the emotions. I cut them off and buried them deep so I could tell my tale without flinching. I “set my face as flint” because I did not want to feel the humiliating sting of pity. I would do lip service to my part in the story. I could admit the pride – the sheer hubris that led me into those places. I could be so stinking spiritual about it all that I would even say that I was thankful for that time, and laugh about how it took something that severe to get through to someone as hard headed as I am. I could confess how I had been a fool and share with you what I had learned, but I never let the enormity impact me, not really, not deep down where counted. It was an intellectual assent to what I knew to be right and good, but there was no heart behind it.
You see, I knew all the answers. I knew which verses to quote and how to phrase things to that you would hear how dazzling my intellect was and never notice what was behind the curtain. After a while, I forgot that there even was a curtain, let alone that there was something behind it. I convinced myself that this was me, all there was to me, and no one needed to know that there was more, not even myself.
The thing is when you lock down your heart that tight, it can’t beat. There is no room left for it to function, and you slowly begin to die. I kept the pain at bay, and if you don’t feel any pain you don’t react. Emergencies and crises become your forte, because you they don’t rattle you at all. How could they? At that point you are nothing more than a robot who is carrying out the programming, a program I did and still do believe is right, but one I could never implement completely because the primary code is love. And acts of love can be performed, but if the emotion is not there then you are offering nothing but pretty lie.
The other problem is if you never feel the pain of a wound inflicted, you will never be able to forgive. You may be able to respond with the appropriate gesture or kind word, but the hurt is still there just lurking behind the curtain. The apathy that was once a shield will harden into bitterness, and the sense of satisfaction for your self-control becomes wall of pride and disdain for those who allow emotion to rule their hearts.
Love for God and reliance upon him erodes, as your ability to cope becomes the new god to whom you have erected your altars. Relationship becomes ritual, not because you derive any enjoyment from his presence, but simply because it is the proper thing to do and your delight is in your ability to do the ritual well. Prayers become perfunctory and empty repetition, as you are left to wonder if he hears you at all, but since when was God ever servant to the decrees of the mind? And how is he to respond to the cries of a heart you have strangled in a futile attempt at self-preservation?
Then comes the day when he places the choice before you, the one you have worked so hard to avoid, do you love him or do you love the life you have created? Do you trust him to heal the wounds you have denied? Do you want him or the walls of protection you have built around yourself?
The answer should be easy. For my mind knows the correct response, but my heart is still clutching at the curtain afraid to step into the light. I was hurt the last time I let down my guard. I still have the scars to prove it. The select few I allowed to peek in used their privilege as the means to hurt me further. I still bleed from those cuts, but I caught breath of fresh air and felt the surge of blood coursing through my veins once more. I remembered what it felt like to be alive once again, and something within me is crying out that this is what I desire more than the false security I have relied upon. The next step is not safe, but even as I accept that peace floods over me because I know that only when my heart is revealed that he becomes its true defender and king.
