The Failing Façade

03Apr08

Have you ever been caught in a massive lie?  Or perhaps worse, realized you’ve been lying to yourself and it has wreaked havoc on your life?

 

When I was in high school, I was enjoying semi-dating relationship with a college guy I’ll call James.  Yeah, that’s his real name.  Anyway, he would call and tell me all about Baylor and college life and how much I would enjoy it if I matriculated at his school.   One of my fantasies about college was that I would find a perfect church where perfect people attended and experienced perfect fellowship in the Lord, so I often asked him to tell me about his church.

 

Knowing just what this girl wanted to hear, he obliged me often.  “Oh yeah,” he would say.  “You won’t find a better church anywhere than the one I go to.  Everyone just accepts everyone else.  We all go out together after church.  The teaching is the best.  Even though you take notes religiously in class, nothing compares to the copious notes you take during the sermon.”  Starry-eyed, I couldn’t wait to visit.

 

So, my friend Craig and I decided to plan a visit with James as our host, which meant James now had a problem.  He had never actually attended church while he was away at college.  So he asked his buddies for a church that fit the description, and they all agreed that New Hope Baptist Church was definitely the place to take me if he wanted to impress me with the best.

 

Sunday morning James confidently pulled up in the parking lot, having practiced the drive before we arrived.  We were a few minutes late, so we were the only ones walking up to the door, but we could hear the music from the parking lot.  James opened the door for me and the three of us walked in together and stood frozen in our tracks.  The music stopped for a moment. 200 pairs of eyes turned around and looked at us, and all 203 of us starred at each other for a second that seemed like an eternity.  We had walked into a 100% African American congregation, who had decided– after the shock of our stark whiteness – to warmly welcome us, and beckoned, “Y’all come on in!”  I looked at James with raised eyebrows, thinking surely he would have mentioned that in this fabulous congregation he was the only white guy?  After he picked his jaw up off the floor, he clung to his lie stammering, “It wasn’t like this last week!”

 

James and I (and Craig, too, my dear departed friend) have all enjoyed telling this story, and the moral has usually been, “Be sure your sins will find you out.”  But now, it is taking on a new meaning for me. The more we live in close relationships to others, the more our lies and habits get exposed.  What do you when you have been exposed, either to yourself to others?  Is it a welcome chance to grow, or something you try desperately to cover up, fearing rejection or humiliation?  And how about when someone else blunders royally right in front of you?  Can you embrace them as they are?    Exposure produces growth, and God graciously gives us the mirror of relationships that expose our flaws so we can learn to respond to His grace and grow into greater maturity.  

 

 

*Thanks to Mark Woods- Relationships: The Context for Growth
© AmyinDallas, 2007-2008

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