Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
In my first few years as a Christian, I lived a very carefully guarded life. I was hiding something, and that something was the real me. I thought if people saw the real me with all my bad they would not want to be around me for a moment. So I learned how to give the appearance that I was someone other than who I really was. I felt so hypocritical in my heart especially when I was with non-believing people. I was no different from them in terms of desires, attitudes, etc. I acted different, but it was just that, an act. It seemed my life had always been an act and now that I was a Christian it was just a Christian act.
Unknown to me I was doing what my earthly father and mother, Adam and Eve, taught me. Although I was born-again, I had a sense of being wrong because of what was in my heart. Consequently, I was fearful, doubtful and insecure. I felt naked and exposed and at that time I did not know how to allow God to cover my nakedness so I hid and tried to cover myself. I built walls around my heart that I thought would protect me, but in reality they kept me barricaded and in hostage to the fear, toxic emotions and attitudes.
Along the way I discovered something really important, it was that God loved me and wanted to be with me. But I still had the problem of my sin issues. I concluded that I would have occasional times with the presence of the Lord, like when I was at church. So that kept me going to church because I loved being in God’s presence. I believed God loved me but I also felt He was disappointed in me and when I got my act together and stopped being such a sinning jerk then I could have what the spiritual people had, a close relationship with God. That was what my heart longed for, but I just did not know how to stop being a sinning jerk.
Over a period of time I got more and more comfortable with God loving me and little by little I began to let my guard down with Him. I would come out from behind the walls and remove the masks of false identity that I wore. I began to trust God with me, the real ugly and raw me, and I found He would always receive me and it began to feel as if He actually enjoyed being with me.
However, I would never go out in public without my wall or mask. I came to the place of trusting that God would not reject me, but not people. I wasn’t about to go through the firestorm of rejection I knew I would face if they found out about the real me. Outwardly I was a hypocrite, an actor on the stage of life, but in my heart that was the last thing I ever wanted to be, it wasn’t the real me.
One day the Lord told me it was time to stop living behind the walls. He told me that He would dismantle the walls for me if I would allow Him. Nervously I made a decision, I decreed the walls must come down. What followed was a painful yet healing season in my life. I was learning to allow God to be my covering. Instead of hiding behind a wall I learned to let God hide me in His love. This impacted me so much that for the first time in my life I began to see my true self. I saw the illusion of being an actor on the stage of life and I was ready to begin the journey of learning to live with an unveiled face. Only the love of God can do such a thing.
Many Blessings, BW