Our Longing for Authenticity

We long for the authentic. Texting a friend may be fun, calling and hearing their voice brings them even closer, but nothing compares to actually spending time with them. We’ve all heard (and many have painfully experienced) that while advancements in technology and communication promise to bring the world closer, they result in a painful gap; creating a façade of closeness while leaving people at unprecedented levels of loneliness.

Yet when we deal with people face to face, we are faced with an even deeper problem. While we are physically seeing the real them, they are usually hiding behind layers after layers after layers, and reaching the real them seems to be the arduous feat of an expert digger.

But before we start pointing fingers, let’s pause to think of ourselves. Are we too hiding behind layers? Do we really reflect on the outside who we are on the inside? Or are we looking for an authenticity in those around us yet fail in being authentic ourselves?

But then we seem to be faced with an even deeper problem… who is the real me?

The real me is a composite of the thoughts I think to myself at the end of the day; the real me is how I truly perceive myself behind all the façades, the real me is all my weaknesses laid bare. “But you are surely not asking me to reveal all that to the world?! They would trample me underfoot and gobble me up alive! Hiding is a defense mechanism that protects me from a cruel world.”

Sure, go ahead, hide. But don’t expect anyone else to be authentic either, and let’s live in this ever-unsatisfying fake world filled with fake people living a fake life.

Or, allow me to share an alternative. It comes from an authentic story that took place a couple of thousand years ago. Jesus had stopped in the heat of the day for a drink at a well, and there met a woman from a town known as Samaria. Jews and Samaritans were enemies at the time and any discourse between them was taboo. And here was Jesus talking to a Samaritan, and not just a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman, and not just any Samaritan woman, but a Samaritan woman who was well-known for her life of sin in adultery. I’ll pass over all the great details of this story and zoom in to one particular statement. After her encounter with Jesus, the woman went back to her town to preach the Gospel and tell everyone in her town about Christ. What was her message? It was literally this, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.” Excuse me?! A man, a man who told you what? Told you all you ever did?

Suddenly the façades were dropped. Suddenly the source of her shame was something she was yelling throughout her town. How come? What happened?

She had an authentic meeting with the only authentic One, and He began restoring her to the original authentic image which He masterfully knitted in her mother’s womb.

I’m certainly not inviting you to walk the streets and yell out your sins. What I’m inviting you to is the same authentic encounter that the Samaritan woman had with Jesus.

And because we are in a world that aggressively competes for our attention through our senses, we need this authentic encounter with Jesus every day, and I could argue, every moment of every day. It is only this authentic encounter that will tear away layer after layer after layer of fakeness, until you reach the true “you.” You will be faced head-on with your sins, but your Savior, who died to bear those very sins, will be right there by your side; to accept your sincere repentance, to wipe away every tear, and to support you through the pain. The layers will reveal unmatched beauty. The world has programmed us to think that beauty comes through covering up our deformities, by “making-up,” but we know deep down inside that authentic beauty comes not by making-up but by being the real us. We need not fear being the real us when in the presence of Him who created the real us.

Let me close with one final thought. When we buy a piece of jewelry, we want to make sure it is authentic; true silver, true gold, true diamond. And just like there are ways to test the authenticity of jewelry today, if you wanted to test a piece of pottery you were buying thousands of years ago, you would place it in the sun. Why? Because merchants who wanted to cover up any cracks in their pottery would glue the pieces together using wax. Once placed in the sun, the wax would melt and the cracks would reappear, possibly bringing the beautiful pottery to pieces.

In his letter to the church in Philippi, the Apostle Paul begins with thanksgiving and the following prayer, “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”

The word pure in the original Greek is εἰλικρινεῖς (eilikrinés) which literally means, “judged by sunlight.” Paul’s prayer for the Philippians is my prayer for myself and you:

Lord, we long for an authentic existence. And we know that such an authentic existence is impossible without an authentic encounter with You; an encounter that unites us with You… this unity that reveals our cracks in Your perfect light. We humble ourselves into Your hands; the hands of the perfect Potter. 

Shape me as you will Lord, with an authenticity that reflects You and an exclusivity that reflects me, with all the intrinsic uniqueness You created me with. Amen.