If They Knew [jessi]

“No one would love me if they knew all the things I hide.”

It’s a line from an old Caedmon’s Call song that creeps back into my consciousness every so often, because it’s such an honest sentiment. Seriously—show me a man who says he has nothing to hide, and I’ll show you the biggest liar in the Western Hemisphere. The minute we started throwing open the closet doors, and dragging out his past he (if such a person exists) would beg for a halt to the process. It doesn’t really matter what’s in there. It might be an uncontrollable temper, an addiction, or something as innocuous as a misspoken word that only he remembers. But fear of judgment is strong. And with each other’s weaknesses, we are nothing if not judgmental.

It’s the relative goodness we are comparing, as if the seriousness of your sin can be placed on a sliding scale, and God grades us all on a curve. Only the truth is my redemption can’t possibly be found in having sin that is somehow “less bad” than yours, and we both know it. My storage unit full of shortcomings (heated, and 10 x 25 feet) is as crippling to me as yours is to you, regardless of what is contained therein.

So what are we left with, then? A general feeling of worthlessness that we just can’t shake, now that all attempts to justify ourselves in our own eyes have failed. And so I stuff my faults and bad habits, and trot out just enough of my quirks to make myself seem genuine to people, and I’ll use words like “authenticity” and “transparency” in hopes that by proxy I’ll be associated with those things, without actually having to go through the pain and vulnerability that is required for either. After all, “no one would love me if they knew…”

It never occurs to me to question that perhaps I’m searching for approval in the wrong place. That my desire to be loved not because of anything I do, but just because isn’t wrong of itself, just misdirected.

I was re-reading C.S. Lewis’ essay “Weight of Glory” last week, and he says,

To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

Lewis goes on to talk about the promise of glory in scripture is simply being noticed by God, and that to be noticed, known and loved is the pinnacle of our existence. So it seems that my people-pleasing tendencies, the ones that motivate me to cover up the less than stellar aspects of myself, have some sort of purpose after all. That when properly directed, and with a child-like innocence, that desire to please can itself create pleasure for my creator. May we all focus our needs for approval to such an end. If we have praise from our Creator, what need do we have to worry about praise from anyone else?