55: Be Yourself

One thing I love is collaborating with others to create something beautiful and meaningful. I’ve come to recognize that this is incredibly life-giving for me, which is why I was so thankful to have the opportunity to do just that this past summer. 

I’ll never forget one particular moment before it all began. It was a Saturday night, the night before our team would begin to lead two back-to-back high school conferences together. We’d only just met in person a couple days before, having relied solely on a couple Zoom meetings throughout the year to plan something we weren’t even sure would happen. And yet, there we were, sitting together, sure that the conference was, in fact, happening, and anticipating all that the next two weeks might hold.

That night, it became clear that there were two main things we all had in common: we loved Jesus. And we were all feeling a bit inadequate, in one way or another. 

For instance, our preacher, who was from an historically black church, shared that he looked up videos on YouTube of white preachers the students might be familiar with, in an effort to mimic their preaching and blend in as much as possible. Our music leader wasn’t sure his laid-back energy would translate to an auditorium full of young people and wanted to make sure he led songs that would resonate. Our recreation leaders, two wonderful women from Puerto Rico, were feeling out of practice and unsure about how to navigate activities that were both fun and safe in the middle of a pandemic. 

As for me and Brad, the keynote speakers, we’d never done anything like this together before - separate, but not together, and those are two very different things!. We were feeling discouraged. As much as we’d tried to prepare, we worried that our content would fall flat and that our dynamic while teaching together would be more of a hindrance than a help. 

As we went around the room and shared these feelings of inadequacy, one of our directors looked at us and said, “I want to remind you all that we didn’t invite you to be a part of this team because we wanted you to pretend to be someone else. We invited you because we want you to be who you are. So don’t forget to be yourselves.” 

It sounds so simple now, but in the moment, I felt a deep sense of relief in the room and in my own heart. We just needed to show up fully, as ourselves, and trust that the Holy Spirit would weave all our different gifts and weaknesses together into something meaningful. I won’t go into all the details now, but I was blown away over and over and over again throughout the two weeks that followed, as the Spirit did just that. Our team and what we offered together felt whole in a way I can’t entirely articulate.

While it might sound cliche, there is something powerful about being yourself. And while it might seem simple, being ourselves can also be a challenge. But God has been reminding me why it’s important.

Scripture talks about how we are created in the image of God. But not one of us is a complete image or picture of God. We believe Jesus is the only one who gives us that full picture. But we each carry a little glimpse of God within. And this is important to remember for two reasons. 

First, each glimpse of God matters. Each glimpse offers something unique, something of value,  just like we talked about back in Remind{h}er 23. It can be easy to read parts of Scripture like Psalm 139, which talks about how we are knit together, fearfully and wonderfully made, and forget what that implies.

I’m not sure if you know how to knit or crochet. My grandmother taught me when I was younger, and I wasn’t very good at it, to be honest. But what I do know is that it’s not necessarily a quick and easy task. It’s intricate and requires time, thought and focus. 

And so when we hear that God knit us together to be who we are, it’s safe to say that God didn’t just throw a bunch of random stuff together and call you, you. God thought about it. God spent time on you. God was intentional. God chose one unique characteristic and intricately pieced and paired it together with another special quality and God continued to do just that over and over and over again until you were you. A unique glimpse of the image of God. Just as you are.

That doesn’t mean we don’t ever grow or change or become clearer glimpses. But it does mean that we trust the heart and hands that knit us together. And we don’t shy away from living into who we were created to be.

But we are only one glimpse on our own. Which leads to the second reason it’s important to be ourselves.  We often want to have it all together, all by ourselves. But the truth is, we have gifts and we have weaknesses and ultimately, if we are going to be the people God created and called us to be, we need each other. 

Brad loves to tell a story that Bono, the lead singer of U2, once shared. Bono was asked what the secret behind the band was. And essentially, Bono answered by saying, “I can’t play the drums like Larry, or the guitar like The Edge. And they can’t sing like me.” Bono went on to share, “The blessing of your weaknesses is they force you into friendships.” 

In the context of our faith, each of us is one piece of a beautiful mosaic, one thread of a grand tapestry that displays the image, the heart, the character of Christ in the world around us. And if we choose not to be who we are, if we instead to choose to pretend to be something we’re not, not only will we feel stuck and exhausted, but something of value will be missing. 

In Romans 12:4-6, Paul reminds us of this. We read:

4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

As Paul says, we all have gifts to offer - different, needed gifts.. And God even works in our weaknesses, because where we are weak, God is strong. Just as the beloved Fred Rogers used to say, “The greatest gift you will ever give is your honest self.”

Maybe you’re part of a ministry team, interviewing for a job, serving at your church, raising a family, applying to college, leading in your community, making a big life decision, moving to a new city or making new friends. No matter the circumstance, we’re called to show up as our honest selves. 

So today, remember to do just that: be yourself. May we trust that the glimpse of God we each uniquely offer is worth sharing as we live into the people God created us to be.