a mask that portrays that we don't need grace

Have you noticed that every single person you know is trying to mesh their daily lives into the demands of an epic game of fraud?

When I look around a roomful of friends from my church or see a screen filled with the status updates of acquaintances, I see dozens or hundreds of humans who are ashamed of themselves, working frantically to build walls or weave invisibility cloaks or fashion masks that can cover them up, that can become a kind of new persona for them to hide behind while still appearing to face the world. These new identities cover the sensitive parts of who they really are and protect them, in theory, from the judgment of others and God.

Some hide behind silence, others behind constant comedic banter. Some build whole identities on physical strength or appearance, while others fight the battle for individuality and importance by grooming their intellect.

All of them - all of us - are hiding something. Sometimes even from ourselves.

Here in the dark behind the mask, we are lulled to sleep by a sense of security. Fraud, for masters like ourselves, is low-risk; it eliminates the much higher-risk alternative of being vulnerable and leaves us believing we're safe, unable to be touched by the things that hurt.

Or the things that heal.

Behind my silence has been a starvation for affirmation, a desperate need to be heard.

Behind my sense of humor has been a massive struggle against bitterness and anger and loneliness.

Behind my pursuit of physical strength has been a weak and wounded soul trying to build worth in self-destruction.

Behind them all, feeding into each facade has been the hardening sin of pride - the one that closes hearts to love, the one that opposes the grace of God, the one that keeps me "safe" and cold and numb inside, just like you.

It's the one that damns us to distance from the God who could set us free.

It's the one that traps us in a stone fortress of isolation from the relationships He created us to have.

It's the one that reduces us to dry bones, withered by cynicism and beaten down by our never-ending efforts to ascend to glory on our own, hunched under the dead weight of our false self, having fallen to Satan's favorite sin and rejected the life-giving empowerment of grace. Like the builders of Babel, our pride will be duly rewarded with the isolation and confusion and rabid desperation it has sown . . . unless we open our eyes to the truth.

On the eve of a day that's forgotten and fake
As the trees, they await, and clouds anticipate
The start of a day when we put on our face
A mask that portrays that we don't need grace
On the eve of a day that is bigger than us,
But we open our eyes 'cause we're told that we must,
And the trees wave their arms and the clouds try to plead
Desperately yelling there's something we need.

- Tyler Joseph, "Ode to Sleep"

The truth is that we can't live in truth if we are a living lie.

The truth is that a tower built out of the bricks of pride will never reach God.

The truth is that a heart "protected" from the risk of vulnerability is a heart closed to the scandalous grace and passionate love of our Father.

The truth is that when we can't receive grace or love, we will find it impossible to give grace or love to others.

Again . . . the truth, the bottom line, is that we can't live in truth if we are a living lie.

There IS something we need, and it is the one thing we've worked so hard not to: grace. The grace of God, accessible only to those who will prostrate themselves in humility before the His throne - who will discard their protective masks and brave the risk of vulnerability for the greater prize of knowing Him and walking in His truth.

Jesus didn't tell us to follow the Pharisees, who created a painstaking system for achieving a bulletproof holy-looking identity and then proceeded to live in snobbish isolation from anyone who might tarnish it. Instead, He said "Follow Me," and then spent His ministry humbly building real, intimate relationships with real, broken people. Ultimately, He died a criminal's death on their behalf, even though He was the King. Heart opened wide, at imminent risk of excruciating pain.

But it's this, His openness and receptivity to the love and grace of God, that made Him capable of extending that same death-defying love to us.

Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good.

- C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Let's open our eyes and be set free.