They have eaten cat food, eaten bugs, eaten boogers, and eaten their scabs. They have surreptitiously gone almost a week in the same socks and underwear.
Even when their armpits smell like rancid chile dogs and their head is 1/3 greasy hair, 1/3 grass clippings, and 1/3 dirt, they beg with tears to be let out of a shower.
For the first decade of their lives, words, food, and spit flew onto everything within a two foot radius of them at the dinner table. Elbows popped out at right angles with every bite and milk was knocked over so regularly that I was tempted to pour a cup onto the table at the beginning of each meal, just to get it over with.
The go-to explanation for almost every bone-headed decision they have made is either, "Did I do that?", "I didn't do that!", or "I didn't mean to do that!", accompanied by a shocked expression and big weepy eyes.
That explanation has been trotted out to account for the broken window in the barn, the broken window in Papa's car, the broken window at the church gym, and (yesterday) the broken window in the garage.
It has been used to explain sawed off trees, frogs in the glove compartment, knives in the microwave, and public belching.
Fingers slammed in doors and stuck in keyholes, chipped teeth, black eyes, blown circuits, splintered furniture, and ripped clothing--it all comes down to this one statement of authentic incredulity.
The problem is that the purpose of parenthood is not to excuse or enable the free expression of our children's "authentic selves".
The purpose of parenthood is to raise up men and women who will become adept at living peacefully, politely, and lovingly as members of their families, so that they can transform into living peacefully, politely, and lovingly as members of society.
None of us is an autonomous being, and where our "authentic" habits and impulses encroach upon others, the habits and impulses must go.
Wait. A. Second. What am I saying?
Sheesh!
Who am I to ask my boys to give up their authenticity? Sacrilege! Authenticity is the holy grail of the modern age, and our highest calling is the free expression of our authentic selves, right?
Oh yes, friends! The culture has been talking and I've been listening. Authenticity is king. The 11th Commandment clearly states, "Thou shalt not ask me to change my stripes to accommodate you or anyone else. This is 'who I am'."
Your job is not simply to not judge me, not just to tolerate me, but rather to actively affirm and celebrate every outworking of my authentic being.
Every impulse and felt need must be validated.
Every belch and pimple, every windy effusion and ill conceived tweet, every half-baked lifestyle choice I advertise among my 1,327 Facebook friends must be stamped with a thumbs up or a smiley face. In fact, I don't even want to know that opposing viewpoints or opinions exist.
Give me my authenticity...and applause...and a safe space to practice my absolute Me-ishness...away from criticism of every kind...or give me death!
So where does this leave me with my boys? Hmmm...
Do I stop correcting their "misbehavior" and start applauding it so it won't be such a shock to them when they learn that all the explosive outworkings of their authentic selves during childhood were not actually immature and ill-conceived rudeness (as I had previously told them), but rather valid lifestyle choices?
There may well be some in the culture at large saying, "Yes! Let those boys be free! Free to draw snot pictures on the patio doors and carve their names into the coffee table. Free to decide their own menu/mealtime/bedtime/curriculum/gender expression. Free to wander in and out of their parents' conversations at whim. Free to slouch into churches, weddings, and funerals wearing their favorite old t-shirt and a pair of cowboy boots--or maybe no shoes at all, just socks! Or maybe no socks! Or maybe no pants! Or maybe just their footie pajamas.
Or a purple tutu.
In all seriousness, when I look around the world these days, I feel like I am living in a dystopian novel. Increasing confusion over the basic realities of life is understandable for a people who have lost their moral moorings, but it should not be bleeding into the church the way it is.
Here is where everyone who is not a professing Christ follower can stop reading. Not to be rude, but this does not apply to you.
For the rest of us, I think it is time we remember that when we gave our lives to Jesus, we agreed to let Him have His way with us. We signed on because we saw where our authentic selves were leading us, and it was off a cliff.
Jesus saves us from being slaves to our twisted authenticity by sending the Holy Spirit to lift us out of confusion and into the beauty that we were created to reflect as image-bearers of a perfect, holy, righteous God.
Romans 6:6 says, "We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin."
Ephesians 4:22-24 states, "You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image – in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth."
Christ is the only one whose authenticity doesn't stink after three days. It is uncorrupted. The rest of us stopped being able to trust ourselves in the garden of Eden. So while I may (and do) still retain authentic skills, giftings, talents, and aptitudes, there are also within me a great number of propensities that I must now hold up to the light of Scripture, and where they do not match, I must allow God to conform me to His image.
He is true north. He is the absolute standard--the only One who actually IS love, holiness, purity, righteousness, justice, and truth. For me, these are attributes that I choose to wear or not wear.
I am loving...when I am not choosing selfishness.
I am true...when I am not lying.
I am just...when I am not being capricious.
I am holy...when I am not wallowing in sin.
I am faithful...when I am not straying.
Our goodness is fickle and fleeting, and our hearts are always waging war against us, which is why the only authenticity a Christian ought to embrace is God's, and why I think He uses such active and specific language in describing how we are to do that.
Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God."
Colossians 3:9-10 "Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. "
Romans 8:12-13 " Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."
Colossians 3:5 " So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don't be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world."
Romans 13:14 "clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh."
We like the idea of being forgiven, and receiving love, and gaining heaven, but when Jesus comes into our lives and starts moving around the mental furniture, knocking out walls, and hauling our beloved collection of velvet Elvises to the dumpster, we can get defensive.
The danger of being steeped in a culture of affirmation is that when some deformed aspect of our authentic self rears its ugly head and meets the weight of disapproval from either a person who is being hurt by it, a person who sees us being blinded by it, or by the Holy Spirit, we can easily flee to the approving arms of our Facebook friends or into the comfortable pews of the pick-a-flavor churches that populate our country instead of earnestly and honestly searching the Scripture to help bring our hearts in line.
I guarantee that you can find a church congregation which will actively cheer you on in any path you want to take. It is one of the side effects of living in an affluent and apathetic culture.
When one's faith is not a matter of life and death, but simply just another lifestyle choice, we find that the clergy and congregants alike begin to wrestle the power of definition from the hand of God and run about in a mad frenzy of approbation, and soon God's voice is drowned out in a convulsion of back-slapping.
And sin slides in to do its ugly work.
Oh, Church! O, Christian!
Oh, Self!
I truly wish we would hear much, much less about how we should be loving and accepting and validating one another's authentic selves in the church and instead turn our desperate eyes onto the only Source of authentic love, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, justice, holiness, truth, self-control, joy, gentleness, mercy, and grace.
It occurs to me that the ONLY "like" we need be concerned with is God's. His thumb is bigger than anyone else's, and retains the right to judge our actions. Matthew 10:28 says, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
His standard exists outside of my opinion. His authenticity is the one that will win. If I don't bow the knee now, I will do so eventually, and not without wreaking a good deal of havoc on scores of hapless victims of my unbridled authenticity and destroying myself in the process.
My authentic self likes to lose her temper and is prone to using her substantial vocabulary to machine gun whoever is irritating her at the moment.
It feels good. It feels, oh so natural. But PLEASE don't let me live there! Spur me on to love and good works! (Hebrews 10:24)
Your authentic self may be gossipy, or hyper-critical, or poly-amorous, or violent, or selfish, or lustful, or lazy. I guarantee that any one of those traits can at once feel right and be affirmed by your own heart.
If you don't know Christ, I love you too much not to tell you that you do not have to be a slave to those passions and tendencies. He came to bring life, and life more abundant! (John 10:10)
How He loves us! How much He longs to bring us to the sweet freedom of sanctification and release us from our self-inflicted prisons. How can we look at what He sacrificed for us and not be serious about living--not in our authenticity--but in His holiness?
Titus 3:3-6 says, "For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior."
If you do know Jesus, then your job is to encourage your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to continue to adopt the authenticity of God, and to challenge yourself to find more ways to put off anything that doesn't match His word or His ways.
Christian Friends, can we work on this together?
There are aspects of every one of us that are good and worthy of being cultivated and celebrated for the benefit of those around us. But the test must be whether an attitude or attribute falls inside or outside the boundaries prescribed for us in Scripture.
Not Scripture in a vacuum, or contorted into a fun-house parody of itself, or as an addendum to what you were going to do anyway, or as a pick-a-passage validation tool.
We cannot keep studying the cultural fads with an eye to how close we can get to the fire without being burned.
May we instead turn our eyes upon Jesus and read His word plainly, in context, by genre, with an earnest heart for truth and a commitment to bow before it--and watch as the Holy Spirit does its beautiful refining work in us.
The Bible is a road map, and God is a gentle Teacher, but we need to stop trying to arm-wrestle Him into agreeing with us and instead align our hearts with His.
And so I will continue to preach to myself in the mirror every morning, and then go downstairs and preach the same message to the squirrels God has given me to raise: "Rejoice! Jesus loves you just as you are!"
And right after that: "Rein it in, Cowboy! He also loves you too much to let you stay there."
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Philippians 1:6 "For I am confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will continue to perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."
