I’m tired. I’m so tired of being strong in front of the choir and wretched when I’m alone and I’m jaded
(March 10th and a Third by JGivens)
We live in an unfortunate era. We live in a world lacking authenticity. We live in a world that allows us to be whoever we want to be. We can sculpt the ideal human being based on the characteristics we hold dear; we do this through social media. However, our lives on the Internet are beginning to bleed over into the real world more and more. We live in a world of masks, because being real is scary. Letting out your emotions makes you look sloppy or out of control. Being in tune with society means that you are out of tune with silence and thus out of tune with your true self. The masks are becoming our identity.
This person that we build that looks like the best in all of us just brings an increasing sense of insecurity in those around us. In his book, The Catalyst Leader, Brad Lomenick writes, “The digital age makes it easy to be inauthentic. Individuals now have the power to create a person in whatever image they choose, even if it doesn’t match reality. The person who sends inspirational tweets or smiles in pictures on Facebook doesn’t have to be the one who lives inside us.” It has become a snapshot of the best in everyone and consequently puts down those who feel ashamed.
In addition, I believe it taps into something deeper within us. We all have this longing to follow someone or something that is larger than life. We expect our pastors or spiritual leaders to be next to perfect. We are infatuated with the rich and famous. Also, we want to be surrounded by those who have the same ideals as ourselves. Disagreement is marred by comments stained in regret. When the people we look up to seem just as human as we do, then we toss them to the side or mark them as someone without credibility. We are swift to judgment and lacking in grace. We are scared.
We want life to be cut-and-dry. It isn’t. We want Scripture to lay things out for us. It doesn’t. Life is, for lack of a better word, pretty crappy a lot of the time. The mountaintop experience is rarely discovered. Time in the valley occurs from time-to-time. However, that in between space is where life is lived. It is where we find ourselves. Our identity is shaped here. God is found here. I am beginning to learn this more and more as it seems I am in the valley or the mundane and cannot seem to find my way to the mountaintop, to this experiential ecstasy of God.
As I have stated in previous posts, I am a critical and sometimes cynical person. It can be a gift, but I find it a curse in an overwhelming majority of the time. This has made it hard for me to settle into my faith as of late. If you asked me even as little as two or three years ago what I looked for in a church, I would have said I wanted to feel the Spirit there, most likely. I wanted to get that tingly, joyous feeling that could either be the fact that the air conditioning just kicked in or that the God of the universe is meeting with us in the beauty of His tender love. I felt God all the time in that period of my life. Then, one week it just kind of stopped. I entered the valley, the wilderness if you will.
As I entered this state in my life, I began to see that I was just searching for the experience. I wanted God to make me feel good as His glory fell over a service, a time of worship, or just in a small prayer time. The sin I was wrapped up in and still battle on a daily basis caused me to become selfish and that selfishness began to take over my spiritual life.However, I could not afford to be weak in front of people. Everybody else has it together as I look out at the world through the lenses that are available to us. So I continued to put on the mask, the mask of lies. So in public, I portray strength and confidence, hoping that maybe that would help those around me that I was trying to connect with. While, in private, I began the search for why I could not feel anymore.
Now, in this journey, I have begun to realize some flaws in my original claims. The feeling should never be the goal. Feeling good does not need to be the goal. God is the goal. God is always the goal. So, what I search for in a service has drastically changed, because the characteristics of church have changed for me. I desire authenticity and not just for one day each week either. I desire response and I desire love. I want to be in tune with silence and I want the outcast to feel welcome. I see Jesus in this. These have becomes pillars for me along the way. When I see Scripture this is what stands out to me. Other things probably stand out to other people, because different lessons are needed for different people.
Authenticity is the heart of this post. The lyrics say at the beginning of the post, “I’m tired. I’m so tired of being strong in front of the choir and wretched when I’m alone and I’m jaded,” which correlate with many of my experiences. I am tired of lacking authenticity in my own life and seeing masks in the lives of others. This year it has been my goal to let my emotions run freer than I used to allow them, to let my worship line up in every aspect of my life, rather than seeming like all is fine. This is why it is important to me.
Response and love go perfectly together for me. They are synonymous with one another for me. I describe them as liturgy, which by many is defined as the order of service or the way we worship. However, I don’t really like this definition. I prefer the literal definition of liturgy which is the work of the people. Preston Yancey, in his book Tables in the Wilderness, puts this into words by writing:
Liturgy means the work of the people. It means the labor we are to do. Liturgical formation, the work that shapes us, is this: praying the prayers we otherwise wish we could skip over, embodying them, posturing ourselves to be transformed by them, so that we can keep that posture and that work when we walk back into the world. It is the way we learn the vocabulary of what we have seen, or maybe the promise of what we will see someday again. Maybe for the first time. We bring heaven in.
It is so much more than just what is found on Sunday morning but it is a transition. Everyone has a liturgy at a service, but it is when those words transition into our everyday lives that something special occurs. It begins to take root and become a part of our identity.
Being in tune with silence and making the outcast feel welcome are both paradoxical to our society. We like to keep going and going until we cannot anymore. Also, we hang out around people who are like us. Like it or not, segregation still exists in many different forms and fashions. We judge people of their exterior or their views and sometimes in that moment cut them off completely. I think in the outcast and in silence is where God is heard the most clearly. God speaks through people. He also speaks in a gentle whisper. We have to be able to hear it. In addition, these are humbling experiences that begin to take the mask off of our lives.
Truthfully, these are actions that apply to ourselves as individuals and to the church as a whole, but I believe they help bring the Gospel to life in everyday life. They help us realize the freedom that comes in submission to Christ. They help keep us moving forward and bring a sense of accountability and community along the way. I see Jesus in these actions and I see Him tearing apart the walls and masks that we choose over authentic life in Him on a day-to-day basis through these disciplines. Ultimately, it comes down to love. Are you willing to love God, others, and who you are in Christ enough to do the little things for Him? That is the faith. That is why we are here to live through the monotony of life in glorious submission to Him.