Are You Wearing A Mask?

Are you wearing a mask that hides your face,
the face that shows your pain,
the pain that surrounds your heart,
the heart that you think no one knows?

"Hello in there!"
"Hello out there!"

Whenever we met, these unspoken words echoed across the dark canyons
between us. From inside my cave I would call to you, you who were
somewhere out there in the endless universe. Each of us was trying
somehow to connect. But we couldn't, because we were holding up the masks
that kept each other from seeing who we really were. So my mask talked to
your mask and yours to mine. Our masks became friends with each other,
while the real you and the real me never met.  

Meanwhile, the real me and the real you were lonely inside and crying for
love. 

Then one day a compassionate friend led me out of my dark cave and
relieved me of my heavy mask. How warm the sunlight felt. The air was
fresh and sweet. I could see beauty all around me. I felt like a little
child. And my heart began to experience real, unmasked love with God and
other people.

Broken homes, broken hearts, broken dreams, empty lives. That is what our
masks do for us. Yet we persist in holding them up. We secretly wish
someone would look behind our heavy masks, but we are terrified that if
people meet the real me they will reject me and leave me. It's happened
in the past. So we think it's easier to live in loneliness than to risk
being hurt again.

Masks, masks, and more masks. See the masses of people in the city, at
the mall, the airport, and in the church houses; so many of them alone in
the crowd, each wearing a lifeless mask. 

So many people wish they were someone else. They're trying to imitate a
favorite movie star, politician, or preacher. Nobody knows who anybody
really is, and many people don't know which of their masks is the real
me. And the people they are trying to imitate also wish they could be
someone else.

Society quite nicely calls this "role playing." But you and I know that
masks are not nice to live behind, and that we're not actors in a play.
No, life is real, painfully real. 

So how can so many fake people survive in a real world? Yet it's so
commonplace we're sometimes afraid of removing our masks because someone
might call us a misfit. We'll even wear ugly monster masks because we
think the real me is so much uglier. We'll do anything to keep people
from seeing who we really are.

What is your favorite mask? Perhaps you pretend like you're happy, so you
never expose your real pain to anyone. Perhaps you wear a sad mask, so
you never give yourself permission to laugh or enjoy life. Perhaps you
want people to think you're successful, but inside you know you're a
failure at what really matters. Perhaps you work hard at putting on a
carefully detailed mask of religion, but inside your heart is hungry,
hurting, and without God.

Somewhere behind the mask of who you want people to think you are,
perhaps cringing and weeping in a dark corner, there you are-who you
really are. 

And that is where Jesus wants to come and meet you. He already knows who
you really are. He is the friend of the fearful, the brokenhearted, the
lonely, the used up, the worn out, and the failure. He wants to come in
and help you.

When you're tired of living with the ugly person behind your lifeless
mask, turn to Jesus. He will accept you, clean you from the inside out,
and reshape the real you into a soul that shines in the image of God. You
will experience the freedom of facing God and people with a transparent
heart . . . and without fear.

Jesus' solution is painful, but it works. Here are some "solutions" that
don't work:

Just being yourself. You would be so obnoxious, few folks could stand to
be around you.

Psychology. Your real self would still be ugly. A new mask, or one
refurbished by therapy, is not what you need.

Wearing Christianity like a mask. That's hypocrisy! Your real self would
still be ugly.

Someday soon, death will remove our masks. Then who we really were in
this life will decide where we spend eternity. Today Jesus invites us to
lay our heavy masks at His feet. 

Today, He wants to come in and heal your sick, sad soul. He offers
genuine love and healing.

Are you wearing a mask? Why don't you remove it and let Jesus in? 


  *********************************************************************
  *     Guard jealously your relationship to God. Jesus prayed                        *
  *     "that they may be one, even as we are one" - nothing                           *
  *      between. Keep all the life perennially open to Jesus                             *
  *      Christ, don't pretend with Him. Are you drawing your                            *
  *      life from any other source than God Himself? If you                              *
  *      are depending on anything but Him, you will never                               *
  *      know when He is gone                                                                          *
  *                        -  C.H. Spurgeon                                                                 *
  ********************************************************************