Articles
Transparency
Transparency (trans-pâr'en-se): something transparent, esp. a picture, design, or the like on glass or some translucent substance, made visible by light shining through from behind.
I’ve done this before, as has my mother before me, and, if she had owned a phone, her mother before her. I’m in full holler mode: the kids are fussing, my spouse is ignoring my request for help, supper is burning, and the dog has just peed on the carpet. The phone rings, I answer and my voice instantly switches to the one I use at church, the one I bring out for company and friends. Kind of like the good china.
So often I seem to be one person at home, another at work, and yet another at church. In actuality I am the same person; only the circumstances and people who surround me are different. Why do circumstances and people affect me so dramatically?
Perhaps it is because expectations are different. Family is the group of people who have to accept me, no matter how badly I behave. I can relieve all the pent up frustration from my day and it will have little effect on me. (It has a huge effect on my family, but because I am basically a self-centered person, I refuse to see the repercussions until they blow up in my face.)
On the other hand, I have to behave at work if I am to stay employed or stay in business, and so my politeness is a matter of basic survival. I may hate the people I work with, but I will pretend to love them so as not to create a difficulty that may affect my bank account.
Church is an altogether unique environment. This is the place where pretending gets its best opportunity to shine; the quest for the approval of those in our spiritual social circle can create the hardest masks and the most prolific lying. At least, this is church as we have made it, not church the way Jesus intended.
What if…? What if I actually believed that Jesus lives in me, and allowed myself to be “made visible by light shining through”? What if I decided to give my family God’s best rather than my worst? What if I refused to give in to the idol of pretentiousness and instead gave something real and whole and healing to a hurting world? What if I decided to “do” church the way Jesus did - real, sometimes raw, sometimes turbulent, but always real and always with love.
Transparency, sincerity, authenticity, genuineness. I desire to be the same person no matter who I’m with or where I am. And I desire that person to be the unique prism that allows Christ to work his captivating grace in to the lives of those around me.
Psalm 32:2 says, “Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.” I am blessed because life is simpler when I am transparent. There is no covering up, no worrying about which lie went where, no concern about someone finding out what I’m really like. I can relax and enjoy my life.
And best of all, because I have taken on Christ’s nature, because my old self is dead and Christ lives in me, when I am abiding in Christ, transparency is my natural condition. It suits me. I would not be happy with anything less.
Hope Taylor
Abiding Life Ministries Canada