In a world where real is not truly real.
I wanted to start Being Real Friday with sharing an incredible encouraging and yet thought provoking post on being authentic. It is one that I hope that you will greatly enjoy. While this particular piece was not written on her blog, Sheila is one to visit. Her blog always leaves me refreshed, encouraged and with food for thought and frankly makes me get out and be creative.
We live in a time where “being authentic” is made to seem like a virtue, and a brave one at that.Meanwhile, the women whose blogs we’ve followed from the beginning, whose opinions we became so open to because of what seemed to be their raw authenticity, have slowly progressed into an agenda-pushing, fake authenticity. (YES it is possible to fake authenticity. We do it all the time.)
Their raw realness – however beautifully and movingly presented – promotes a way of living leading away from the sweet abundance that is God’s design.
Just because I’m “real” doesn’t mean I’m “right”. We must learn to separate the two.
Real authenticity leads people nearer the heart of God. Real courage leads people in the same direction. Courage is found when we are in the right. Authenticity is found in the same.
Actual courage is when you stand up for Truth (capital “T”). I don’t need courage to take off all my clothes (figuratively speaking) and turn around and use that to push my personal agenda. I need a lot of self-focus and audacity to do that. But courage is something far greater…the survivors of Nazi camps who lived to tell their story had courage. They were in the right, and they suffered.
I hate to use a buzzword like “authentic” but I can’t think of a better word. It is so important that you allow your heart to line up with the things God says are true. That is the only truly authentic lifestyle – one in which my perspective is daily becoming more congruent with Truth (capital T – which is something that is NOT “mine” as in “my truth”, but rather Truth as is God’s opinion).
Certain questions can be asked from an authentic adjustment to Truth that would never occur to the mind of a woman who is always seeking to justify “her” truth (little t).
The answers to those questions can make mountains move, rough places plain, blind men see, lame women walk.You can NOT pretend authentic obedience, though all women try to sometimes, and most women try to most of the time. But even the pretend authenticity has this negative “charge” to it, that attracts more deception and problems. God deals in truth, only and always. He will not deliver you from your spin on the facts. He will not set you free from your chosen, pretend issues. Just because you take off all your clothes, revealing all your scars, doesn’t mean you will find freedom from the self-inflicted wounds…not when you blame someone else for them. Not when you insist those scars were never self-inflicted.
God will set you free from what is truly your prison, when you finally decide to admit you are behind a *particular* set of bars.
Find a safe place to tell the truth about what happened/what you did/your bitterness/your choices. You’ll discover answers to questions you didn’t even know existed, yet are primary and necessary to your breakthrough.
Safe place does not equal a place where you will find false comfort or unquestioning agreement. Those are actually unsafe places.