Secret Identity or Public Figure?
Clark Kent. Lt. Diana Prince. Bruce Wayne. These were their names to their friends and colleagues, but they were known to the rest of their community as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman. While they have their descriptive names, the heroes of the Fantastic Four have no real way of hiding who they are. Apart from their snazzy heat resistant, disappearing, stretchy, and strong uniforms, they look the same when they’re saving the world as they do when they walk down the street. I can certainly understand the dilemma between both ideas. On the one hand, I’m sure it would get incredibly annoying having people coming up to you all the time asking for your help. On the other hand, people seeing you all the time would reinforce the reality of the presence of safety in the community. With a secret identity there are things that can be hidden and separated. As a public figure, it’s all out there - full responsibility all the time.
So what about you? Do you have a secret identity when it comes to your faith, or are you a public figure? Living missionally, in my opinion, means being a public figure with your faith. As I said on Sunday, I don’t believe that it means beating someone over the head with your theology, Bible, or faith. What if we simply didn’t hide the reality of our faith in our daily lives? What if we lived out the doubts, the struggles, the ups, the downs, the joys, the pains, and the authenticity of our journey of faith in our daily lives? I think sometimes we get paralyzed by the fear of not having all the answers, or by the fear of not doing something with a big enough impact, or by the fear of lacking some greater calling. Sure…we all might end up with some opportunity to have a monumental impact on the world. The reality, though, is that we can surely have an impact on the world around us on a daily basis. Mother Teresa was once asked how she had accomplished so many amazing things in her life. She responded by saying, “None of us can do anything great on our own, but we can all do a small thing with great love.”
How can we choose to be a public figure? What are the small things we can do with great love to impact the community around us? How do we engage in missional relationships, missional conversations, missional actions on a daily basis? What will you do this week?
Alex
May 27th, 2008 at 9:09 am
There have been so many times in my life some part of me wished I could have had an alter ego… This makes me think specifically of when I was in college and I was working for Express. (clothing) Growing up in the Midwest, this was really the first time in my life that I found myself outside of my conservative Christian bubble I had been raised in. I was not prepared when I started working for Express that the fact that I was going to “Bible College,” would be thing most people decided to focus on. What was most interesting to me was that when people initially found out that I was a Christian, they were always quick to say “I don’t believe in God,” or “I’m spiritual but not religious.” To which my typical response was, “okay.” However… It never failed that when those same people had a crisis in there lives they very often came to me for advice or a listening ear. I think this was because I didn’t try to shove my faith down there throats, but at the same time they knew that I cared very much for them. I don’t say any of this to build myself up, but only to say that I believe if we simply allow our faith to be discovered by the way that we live, opportunities to love others will naturally develop before us. It is then our responsibility to act on those opportunities. I am just as guilty as anyone of letting too many of those opportunities pass by. However, I think that it is a huge disservice to others for us to keep to ourselves something that has so drastically changed our lives. So, be ready, when you ask God to open your eyes to really love others he never fails to follow though! – That is my challenge to myself, to have the courage to act in love when I feel that nudge in my side…
May 28th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Gosh, I think Alex and Travis said it really well. It’s a continuous effort that should (ideally) be played out in our daily lives. Being honest with ourselves and others with consistency, even when it’s not pretty.
Alex did a message last year about the “myth of boxes” (MP3 in the link) that struck me in some of the same ways that this message did. In “myth” I felt encouraged to look at myself as having just one identity rather than multiple “boxes” that I put myself in dependent on the situation/company. The past year I’ve worked on strengthened that idea, and subsequently my self-confidence. When Alex talked about having secret identities, I realized that one concept builds upon the other. With a more solid sense of self - one that is not dependent upon outside circumstances - hiding behind a secret identity is no longer so appealing. It’s still a journey, but I don’t put my top secret costume on much anymore. I suppose just trying to be honest about who I really am makes me a “public figure”.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Lauren, I really like what you said about the idea of putting on your secret identity becoming less appealing. I think the more we live into who we are as a precious and unique creation, the more we will realize the joy (more than just happiness) that comes with living one life and living the life that God calls us to/created for us. As we experience life in that manner, we also want other people to be able to experience the same thing in their own right - life to the fullest as a unique and precious child of God. When we hide in our “secret identity” we rob both ourselves and others of the opportunity of experiencing that life.
If you think about the people who have had the greatest impact on your life, it’s not usually some celebrity or well-known figure. It is someone who you have experienced and lived life with on a deeper and more intimate level. Those relationships can only develop when we truly commit to journeying with one another in an open and authentic manner. That, to me, is at the heart of living missionally.