Undisguised
Recently I watched a clip from an old M.T.V. Series about Catfishing. Catfishing is the practice of pretending to be someone else online so that you can experience the waves and wonders of a relationship while not being truly known.
I had a myriad of thoughts, feelings and reactions after watching the video, mainly because, in the end, it was incredibly sad.
It left me with two—what I think—might be fundamental questions under the surface of the interaction between the man who was catfishing and the man who he fooled:
Why would you want to be with someone with whom you have to hide who you actually are?
What would make you pretend to be something or someone you are not, to be with another person?
These are two very, very important questions. They may be the most important questions you have ever been asked or have ever asked yourself as a single person. Asked another way, one might say, how do you think being inauthentic or artificial is actually going to work out in the end? Again, an important question because, as some have informed me, it is like the wild west out here in these streets, whether you are on all the apps or off them.
One person said it is like being on the autobahn 24/7/365—too fast, sometimes blinding, and full of crashes. Why? Because Few people are authentically themselves. It all feels artificial, one young lady told me. We live in a world of illusion, insincerity and facade.
Society is trying to solve this through shows about Social Experiments, like Love is Blind and Married at First Sight, but if you have engaged either, you know that too has yet to fully, really work.
Artificiality always crumbles, and eventually, who we really are will come to the surface, even if we have skillfully kept up the facade for some time.
Where do we look if social experiments, social media, and social settings have not answered this era's insincerity and illusion? What do we do?
How do we move from artificial to authentic in how we present ourselves to the people around us?
As hard, costly and even terrifying as that might sound, the answer to insincerity is not more insincerity. The answer to illusion is not an equally reactive illusion. The answer to artificiality is not commensurate artificiality; it is authenticity—the dangerous, beautiful, bold, artful act of being sincerely you.
In his letter to Corinth, Paul gives us some insight into authenticity. He writes to them that his boast is he has behaved with complete integrity in this relationship. He has conducted himself with absolute integrity in their relationship.
What is the definition of integrity? Honest, morally upright, whole and undivided. In other words, Paul was his entire self with them, nothing hidden, nothing false, no illusion.
If you and I were to talk about how you present yourself to the world as a person, particularly as one looking for a relationship, could you say this of yourself? Could you say without a hint of shadiness that you present yourself as whole and undivided, as who you really are?
In his Proverbs, Soloman writes about integrity, "whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out." [Proverbs 10:9] Wow.
The source of insecurity is a deficiency of integrity.
Do you want to be secure? Walk in integrity. When you walk in integrity, you do not fear being found out. And when you do not worry about being found out, you have no reason to be insecure. Soloman goes further in Proverbs, writing, "The integrity of the upright guides them, but their duplicity destroys the unfaithful."
Inauthenticity. Insincerity. Duplicity will hollow us from the inside first and eventually destroy whatever we thought we were building relationally.
The opposite of duplicity can be captured in five words:
Simplicity
Purity
Sincerity
Frankness
Graciousness
If you want to be authentic in an inauthentic world… if you're going to put all artificiality to rest in your life—dating or otherwise… if you're going to live free of insecurity or the fear of being found out… then these words must characterise who you are.
Having read these words, I was hoping you could think about each of them and their definitions. Every relationship you have ever had go wrong—romantic or otherwise—is because one or both of you were failing to conduct yourselves according to those five words. And by "go wrong, I mean messy and ugly endings.
Every failed relationship can find the source of its demise in the inability or refusal to be simple, pure, sincere, frank and gracious.
If you are going to move from artificial to authentic… if you will reject the host culture's artificiality for something real… if you are going to experience what it is like to be secure in an insecure world, then this must be true of you, mi familia.
The good news is you do not have to muster the strength to conduct yourself this way. If you are a follower of the way of Jesus, He has given you all the power you need in Him to live accordingly.
You have the Holy Spirit.
You have a new nature.
You have new desires.
Now be who you are in Him! Do not pretend to be something you are not for the sake of someone you think you want, be who you are so that God might send someone you deserve!
Be authentically you, even in an artificial world.
There is, of course, some assumption in that statement that we agree our culture is rather artificial. I would genuinely love to hear the counter-argument if you do not believe that, though I would be hard-pressed to agree.
Everything about our host culture is scaled from dangerously to benignly artificial—everything we watch. Every "influencer" we follow. We cannot even count on the fidelity of the news we read and view, and many of you, and I, have struggled not to conform to that reality. And our conforming, or fighting not to conform, shows itself most readily, relationally.
Jesus offers an alternative. Be who you are; show who you are; be simple, pure, sincere, frank and gracious—it is a better way to do life and relationships. It is authentic. Not only is it authentic, but for followers of the way of Jesus, it is godly and true.
You can live in this world with a clear conscience and engage in every relationship from an authentic place.
What if you all decided to conduct yourself on this "autobahn" of single life authentically?
Yes, we would see the world awaken in extraordinary new ways. But more personal to you, I believe you all would finally feel secure in all the beautiful ways God made you.