SHALEHARBOR

“What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul?” (Matthew 16:26) While I imagine that most of us read this verse and reason that we have not “sold our soul” (as depicted in the new box office movie, Ghost Rider), we should be challenged to consider what we have compromised in our own life to achieve the image and status we have created for ourselves. What expense have we paid and are continuing to pay in order to maintain our station in life?

This challenge is appropriate for all ages; whether a student or an adult, what have you compromised, presented falsely, or kept secret to “fit in” with the people in your circle? Consider for a moment your closet of secrets. What do you see when you open these doors? Do you find inappropriate relationships with others, a violation of sexual boundaries, affairs, same sex involvement, and/or addiction to alcohol, drugs, pornography, shopping, food, or gambling? Perhaps there are financial concerns, debt, overspending, bankruptcy, poor financial planning. What about your conduct in business? Is there stealing from the company, embezzlement, failure to complete job responsibilities? And last but not least, what about familial concerns? Are there ongoing quarrels with family members, failing marriage(s), divorce, children who are out of control?

What is in your closet and how long have those issues been in there? What has it cost you and/or profited you to keep those secrets hidden? What keeps you from opening those closet doors? What do you imagine might happen if those doors were open for others to see? Would exposure cost you a job, a relationship, personal freedom, jail time, loss of personal property, your reputation, acceptance by family and friends?

Universally, it would seem that what largely dictates our exposure of ourselves is the reaction that we anticipate from others. More often than not, we fear that certain exposures might result in rejection and abandonment as well as the imposition of consequences. In the same respect, we anticipate that other (more positive) exposures might gain us acceptance and sometimes even career or social advancement. Thus, from an early age, each of us begins to create a persona that we project to others while maintaining the “incongruent” pieces of ourselves in secret. The longer that we live life this way, the heavier the burden and the more fearful we become at the idea of being “discovered” and fully known.

The Bible admonishes us with this truth, “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open” (Luke 8:17). Whether in life or in death, it is true that at some point for each of us, all will be made known. If you are a parent, there is a strong possibility that your children will “out you” given time, and for those who have experienced this, how much better to “out yourself” than to be “outed” by someone else! Thus we are all faced with the choice to continue to conceal or to reveal. If we wait until the truth leaks out, our hand will then be forced to come clean, to be honest by default or extend denial in a continuing effort to “save face”.

Truth has a price, and so does deception. While we have reasoned and justified it as something altogether different (unique to our own situation of course), the question we must all wrestle with is, “what have we given into in exchange for our soul?” Life is not a popularity contest. At the end of the day, there is but One to whom we offer an account. Each of us must come to terms with the journey that we walk and the choices that we make. To live a life of integrity is to live a life of freedom. To live a life of secrecy is to live a life of bondage. Indeed, the Truth will set you free. Only when our commitment to do the right thing is accompanied by an honest exposure of our inadequacies/failures/mistakes, coupled with accepting the consequences for our choices (past and present), and then moving in a different direction, can we expect to find freedom and truly live.

Is the payoff of freedom greater than the humiliation of exposure? Am I willing to let the chips fall where they may in pursuit of a life that is pleasing to Him?

Life as a popularity contest…

What will you choose? What will I choose?

Ashley Vass

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Christian Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.