Who is that?

OH!  The things I can do on my new computer!!  Messing about with photos is just so much fun!

Those who know me, know this is not what I look like, (albeit most have never seen me first thing in the morning).  YAOW-ZA

I tried to find a free glamour photo editing app, but despite wasting an inordinate amount of time in doing so, I was unsuccessful.  Either, a) such an item doesn’t exist (at least for free, because I’m not going to waste money trying to look like a red carpet wannabe), and b) even if it does exist, I’ve tried to picture myself as a modern day version of Marilyn Monroe, but something gets horribly lost in the translation.  So here’s what I found:

Okay, so Khloe Kardashian doesn’t wear glasses.  Big deal.

Both of these offerings of myself are more than a bit skewed.  Fake.  An unfortunate deceiving (if not entirely comical) misrepresentation of myself.  And sadly, this act of misrepresentation is often times a more serious matter.  I remember finding out that my name had been included on a co-worker’s evaluation that was not an altogether positive report, and one with which I would have disagreed.  I was not happy, and let my displeasure be made known.

I’ve recently perused a couple of replies on other bloggers’ sites that have indicated what one commenter called a “deconverting”, that is, having once made a decision to follow Christ, but then becoming disillusioned by a tragic distortion of the character of Jesus. I’ve been on both sides of that coin, and it’s not good currency.  I’ve struggled with the lethality of legalism for a considerable portion of my life—you can’t help but infect others, particularly those young in the faith.  (Reference photo #1—it’s an ugly, scary monster.) 

On the other hand, when we try to dress Jesus up in our 21^st century American religion called “Tolerance”, we lapse into what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace: a wishy-washy view of a God who lets me get away with anything, a lack of discipline at the cost of true discipleship.  (See photo #2— laughable, and/or pitiful.)

God has more than a few things to say about causing others “to stumble” in their walk with Jesus Christ, or even in their trying to figure out this whole Christian worldview thing.  Here’s just one of His recorded thoughts:

“For the leaders of the people have misled them.

    They have led them down the path of destruction.”

Which makes me appreciate all the more that one of the things for which I’m forgiven is misrepresenting the Name of Jesus to a world “looking for love in all the wrong places.” (Yes, I’m old.)  To my children, to my youth group, to my team members, co-workers, and all the “hidden congregation” that each of us has who are watching, listening, waiting for the real thing.

Thank God that He sees the real me, and loves me anyway.

 

Isaiah 9:16  Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation.