A couple of days ago I was asked by a real deep teen about identity. They wanted to know about sharing their real selves to people, and the fear of rejection. At the time I was stump at what to say. Because she was right not everyone can or will accept the true selves within; the selves that God created. We are called as Christians to be that person that God created and not to be phony. But it is not that simple.
We have been made unique, individual, special and deep people. And there are things about us that are different, unique and individual about us. And because of this not everyone can understand us, because they are different, unique, and individual. So not everyone can understand everyone.
Also because we are individual, special, unique, and have different experiences, different things excite us, surprise us, and scare us. So it is impossible to assume that everyone will understand us, even within the same faith community. I have different friends that understand different parts of me. I have one friend that I talk a lot about soccer with, and one that I play video games with, does that mean that I am being fake with both of them, because I am not sharing my whole self with both of them. Well of course not.
So, why do we have a hard time seeing this when it comes the deeper sides of ourselves? Well the only answer I got is that we complicate it. Let me explain. I have heard the onion idea, where we are at the center and have different levels that we build up to protect ourselves. I have decided I don’t like this idea, I have another idea.
I have a bunch of friends, some I talk about different things I do, some I talk about what I believe that some I talk about myself. I display different levels of who I am with different people. Just because I just talk about soccer with one of my friends does no mean that I am not being myself.
So I think we are like onions but that each level is simply another level of who we are. We are the entire onion. But we choose to show different levels to different people, because each person is different. The difficulty is in knowing which level to show what person (but I will leave that for another day).
Yes we do do things that are not truly who we are, and we do this to protect ourselves. But I suggest that instead of displaying someone we are not, instead for protective reasons we should show different levels of ourselves.
I mean, let me talk to you about soccer, and when I feel comfortable I will talk to you school, and when I feel comfortable I will talk about what I believe, and when I am comfortable I will tell you why I believe and when I am comfortable I will talk to you about my struggles, and when I am comfortable I will talk to you about my success, and when I am comfortable I will show you my failures. It is okay to hide parts of ourselves from others, actually it is biblical “guard your heart because it is the off-spring of life”.
But even with all this, you need to be true in all you do. You need to be yourself (even if you haven’t figured out exactly what that means), no matter what level you share. I mean I will talk about soccer without excitement, because soccer excites me.
