Beautiful Outlaw Chapter 11: Trueness

I’m not sure if it’s proper to empathize with Jesus. If it is, then I can totally relate to Jesus in Chapter 11. Sure, he was perfect and whole and I’m broken and deficient, but this chapter speaks directly to my heart’s deepest discovered longing.

There is pain in living truly. Don’t believe me? Try telling first time parents that you don’t want to attend their child’s first birthday party. Obviously, that’s a petty example used for humor, but the principle is true. Were raised to care what other people think so much so that we often ending up living lies.

In a weird twist of good timing, as I was beginning to write I took a break and followed a link to Rush Limbaugh’s website where I found the following:

Way too many of you care way, way, way too much about what other people think. And you know what’s bad about that? … In order to care what other people think, you have to subordinate yourself to ‘em. You’re automatically saying those people are smarter or they’re better or they’re hipper or whatever… Now, we’re raised this way, by the way. It’s called “being polite” and “being humble” and not being braggadocios. I got over that a long time ago. A lot of people, they’re prisoners to what other people think. In fact, a lot of people lead their lives based on what they think others think and based on what they want others to think. Rather than how they think about themselves.

While I doubt that Rush actually got over caring what people think about him, I definitely agree with his point. Politeness, societal norms, social expectations and workplace politics: everyone has an idea who we should be. Usually it has nothing to do with who we actually are. In fact, virtually all of those externally imposed versions of us represent self-serving manipulations by those who impose them upon us. And because we’re all so desperate to be loved and admired, we go along with it. Eldredge paints an accurate picture of the longing for love:

Consider the natural human longing to be love and admired, how deep it runs in you. It is practically an aching abyss.

I’ve definitely felt like I was sinking into that abyss before. We all have. And while Jesus may not need our empathy, he can certainly teach us something about living truly – being authentic and living as we were truly made to be. This may come as a surprise to many, but “who we were made to be” is actually not code for either cookie cutter behavior modification or do whatever you want hedonism. It’s an actual statement of hope. The personality, the longing, the humor and the passion – they’re from God. They’re intentional. Sure, they’re not free from sin, but they’re not sin in and of themselves. The desire to live truly, to express God’s unique design in us, to have opinions – it’s good.

But we’re so often constrained to live like we’re something we’re not.

Then we see Jesus. There has never been a man more comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He knows where he comes from. He knows why he’s here. And he walks around so freely in that knowledge. He doesn’t wither under persecution or fall back under pressure. He doesn’t apologize when people don’t get his jokes and he doesn’t hold back truth when it might offend. The man even tells his mom to wait outside while he finishes teaching the gathered crowds.

I love the hope the Jesus offers in general, but this specific instance is refreshing to me. I must pursue the same intimacy with the Father that Jesus had. It’ s in the relationship that I’ll be freed to live truly – that I’ll be freed from the defensiveness of trying to live truly in my own strength.