Foolish Facades - August 2006

Dear Grace Family and Friends,

            Have you ever noticed a movie set?  Or perhaps the set of TV drama?  If you could manage to get behind the scenes you would see that all of the pretty walls and elegant furnishings are just a façade – an expensive façade but still just a façade.  There is no substance!  Knock on the door all you want but no one is home!  Much money is spent building the set to give the audience the impression of reality… a Happy Days reality or a Friends reality or Leave it to Beaver reality or Sex in The City reality.  But it’s all a fake!!!  None of it is real!

One of the saddest realities I see is that you and I often build our lives just like MGM or Disney builds a set.  We determine what people want to see.  We dream it up big!  Then we invest an awful lot of thought, creativity, time, energy and money building up a façade to match.  WHY?  Are we afraid of the repercussions of being real?  Perhaps we are and perhaps we have good reason to know that fear.  The truth is that few people ever know that safe place where they can be who they really are.  They don’t trust the safe God and they don’t know any safe people and have never experienced a safe place. 

In Genesis we see the façade building business beginning.  Eve wants to be like God and Adam is silent on the issue.  God comes looking for them and instead of stepping forward they both duck behind their favorite bush – the “we’re hiding because we sinned and maybe you don’t know it yet-bush.”  Adam and Eve had built the first façade.  The bush represented their denial and hiding and was brought on by their shameful action.  Because of Adam and Eve’s little fruit incident, we don’t live as God intended us to live but rather live “broken”.  Being broken, we attempt to “fix” ourselves and each other by building these ridiculous façades.

Through Jesus Christ, what is broken will be restored.  As people restored by the Grace of God through Jesus Christ, we can live in freedom and joy without having to hide in broken bushes.  We can get away from the business of building façades and get about the business of heavenly joy that is known only as we give into God’s unfathomable grace.  Are you ready to give in?  Are you ready to tear down your façade?     It might be painful for a short while but ultimately the joy of God’s grace will prevail and you will know intimately the sound of his voice as he whispers in your ear, “You are mine and I rejoice over you.”

 

Praying that God will make us a safe people,
Praying that God will make us a safe church,
Praying that you and I will intimately know the reality of God’s Beautiful Grace, 
Praying that you and I will lay down our façades and trust Jesus,

Living in Grace,

Harrison Spitler, Pastor