LIE: To avoid rejection I must pretend or perform an admired role

Lie:      To avoid rejection I must pretend or perform an admired role.

Truth: To avoid worrying about rejection, I must enter the ‘secret place.’

We’ve all felt it. I’m talking about that anxious feeling we get at a social event, when we can’t find one familiar face. Some panic, others wade into the crowd with relish. But for both, often the solution is to put on a smile and fake it. That is, we pretend, we put on a role, a persona, perhaps the best version of ourselves or, for some, a completely different personality; others are less subtle – they clam up or hide or avoid the conflict altogether.

The question is ‘why?’ Why do we do this? Why can’t we simply, without pretense or bother, strike up conversations with a simple sincerity, taking a genuine interest in the life and well being of those we meet? Why is that so hard? The answer is obvious: we fear rejection. Oh it’s rare that anyone would be so rude as to overtly turn up their nose and abruptly walk away. But we fear all the subtle nuances of rejection: the half-hearted or overly-cheery welcomes, the lack of sincere and steady eye contact, the lame excuses to leave the conversation, the needless bustling. We’ve become experts at discerning the slightest hint of rejection or at least we think we can. But often our anxiety or super-sensitivity only makes matters worse and acts as a catalyst to keep the cycle going. Oh, what a tangled web we weave!

No one seems to want this, that is, no one intends to consciously put on a role or persona. Rather, we do it unconsciously, automatically, and as a defense mechanism. This self-conscious pretense is so common, many accept it as the inevitable new normal. But this happens, not just at parties and social gatherings, it happens all the time – at work, school, the market, even at home.

Neil Gabler, in his book, Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, spoke of this phenomenon. According to him, reality itself is being re-engineered by the focus of our own performance mentality:

. . . historian Daniel Boorstin, in his pathbreaking study The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, was describing how everywhere the fabricated, the inauthentic and the theatrical were driving out the natural, the genuine and the spontaneous from life until reality itself had been converted into stagecraft. As Boorstin saw it, Americans increasingly lived in a “world where fantasy is more real than reality,” and he warned, “We risk being the first people in history to have been able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive, so ‘realistic’ that they can live in them.” . . . what [Boorstin] recognized was that life itself was gradually becoming a medium all its own, like television, radio, print and film, and that all of us were becoming at once performance artists in and audiences for a grand, ongoing show . . . In short, life was becoming a movie.

Neil Gabler describes the modern extreme of what’s actually been going on for a very long time. Performing a role to please man is as old as humanity itself. John rightly called it out:

Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. — John 12:42–43

It’s true that we all want and need to be acknowledged; we all have a God-given desire for significance and greatness. We should not deny it, but too often we try to get the praise of men directly. Rather, the praise of men should follow the praise of God. When we’re more concerned with what God thinks; when we most desire his approval, we won’t have to worry about whether we’ll receive the praise of men. Jesus showed us the only way to escape this insidious trap:

Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly. . . But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.— Matthew 6:1–6

Jesus’ answer to our trap of disingenuousness is to forget ourselves. “Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Self-forgetfulness is a great virtue that accompanies sincerity and unpretentiousness. The problem is, we may all want it, but we simply don’t know how to get it. Obviously these virtues don’t come easily. Something else needs to happen for them to bloom and grow.

For me, the only remedy is found in the ‘secret place.’ This is the place that we cannot pretend. It’s the place where:

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. — Hebrews 4:13

That may sound scary, and in one sense it should and always will be, but this secret place, though completely void of a place to hide, turns out to be a special throne room. The same passage continues:

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. — Hebrews 4:14–16

Our answer is in our complete and unconditional acceptance by the High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God who can empathize with us. Here, if we will stay long enough to absorb the truth, we are completely undone. All our posturing and posing and preening goes out the window and we become who we truly are. It is here, where God reveals himself, that he also reveals our true self. In the end, God will reveal our true name, the one that only he knows.

And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.” — Revelation 2:17b

The more we come into this throne room, the more is revealed. Slowly he peels back the layers of our pretentions, our false faces, and when they are removed we come out radiant, like Moses.

Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. — 2 Corinthians 3:16–18

See also the introduction, Lies attacking our relationships to others.