Chapter 9 - Skill 6: Unveiled Face (The Wholehearted Journey)
Apr 01, 2022
Joel
START READING/LISTENING TO THE BOOK NOW FREE... @ joeljohnson.org
Have you ever marveled at the paradox of how our greatest strengths can also serve as our heaviest burdens? We've all had those moments where we've put on a mask to fit into the world's expectations, hiding away our authentic selves. My mentor, John Eldridge, and I had an illuminating journey into this realm of self-discovery. John shared his vision of a future filled with God's work and emphasized the importance of being shepherds after God's heart. Our dialogue became an intimate prayer session, inviting divine wisdom to guide us and reveal our hidden selves.
We didn't stop there, diving deeper into exploring the human tendency to dim our lights and cover our faces. What's up with these personas we wear, and how do they stop us from connecting genuinely with our loved ones and God? John and I discuss how to differentiate between our public facades and our real selves. This episode concludes with a forceful call to let down your guard, inviting a deeper connection with others and God. So, join us on this soul-awakening journey, uncover your mask, and embrace your authentic self. It's time to shine!
START READING/LISTENING TO THE BOOK NOW FREE... @ joeljohnson.org
Have you ever marveled at the paradox of how our greatest strengths can also serve as our heaviest burdens? We've all had those moments where we've put on a mask to fit into the world's expectations, hiding away our authentic selves. My mentor, John Eldridge, and I had an illuminating journey into this realm of self-discovery. John shared his vision of a future filled with God's work and emphasized the importance of being shepherds after God's heart. Our dialogue became an intimate prayer session, inviting divine wisdom to guide us and reveal our hidden selves.
We didn't stop there, diving deeper into exploring the human tendency to dim our lights and cover our faces. What's up with these personas we wear, and how do they stop us from connecting genuinely with our loved ones and God? John and I discuss how to differentiate between our public facades and our real selves. This episode concludes with a forceful call to let down your guard, inviting a deeper connection with others and God. So, join us on this soul-awakening journey, uncover your mask, and embrace your authentic self. It's time to shine!
Speaker 1:
Chapter 9, skill 6, an Unveiled Face. Sunday morning John Eldridge shared with the entire congregation. I wrote a few notes in my journal. We have a hope. That is the anchor of our soul. For hope to work in your heart, there has to be something real it can anchor into. One day. The scripture foretells that there will be a restoration of all things at the great starting again. Jesus promised I'm making everything new, revelation 21, verse 5.
Speaker 1:
After service in the green room John was talking with the senior pastor and it appeared he was having a bit of a heart to heart. I was surprised to see him periodically glance at me like he was including me in the conversation. It was the three of us standing in a triangle in a room full of people, me listening to them talk, but John still including me in this clearly private conversation. When the pastor was done, john turned to me and said that was a really thoughtful gift. I guess Bunyan was the way to Eldridge's heart. I thought there's always that fine line between being thoughtful and creepy. My fear of crossing over that precipice with one of my mentors from afar was eased.
Speaker 1:
The conversation between us was easy. There was a free flowing exchange of thoughts and laughter. At one point we even gave each other a high ten. He shared a little bit about the vision God was giving him for the future, and then I asked you know how you talk about the stages of a man's life in your book, the Way of the Wild Heart? He said yes. I said what stage would you see yourself in now? John replied I'm sixty now. I thought my king days were over. I thought I was headed into the stage of the sage, but I think God has some more kingly work for me to do. I replied Would you be open to giving some sagely advice to this younger king From time to time? John replied that sounds like a discussion for later.
Speaker 1:
I pulled out my phone and said Surely, what's the best way to contact you? He said yeah, the best way is through email. You can email me and my assistant will get back with you. Now I thought I had just received a very polite dead end. I was grateful to have this moment with a man whose work had led me further into courage, manhood and into the way of the heart. I did what he asked, though. I emailed him before I left the green room but honestly wasn't expecting a reply. John's request for me to email him was not a polite dead end, but exactly what he said it was an opportunity to continue the discussion.
Speaker 1:
Later Soon thereafter, I received a call, you know. He said we could talk about a lot of things today, but why don't we take a moment and start off this phone call by inviting Jesus to say whatever it is that he'd like to say through it? So we prayed together, inviting Jesus to speak. Through our conversation I had talked about my transition out of Mark and Susan's church and he asked how I was doing. I'm doing well, all things considered. I'm revamping the ministry website right now and prepping to launch a new podcast with Casey called Messy Life Podcast.
Speaker 1:
John said you know I had to step out in faith to start wild at heart. I was with the ministry for over a decade and felt I couldn't continue on without massive compromise. In the book of Jeremiah, god promises that he would raise up shepherds after his own heart, shepherds who would guide his people in a way that's true to God's own heart. I listened intently. He was speaking right to where I was at. I had my counseling practice and then I felt God say to me one day you're pretty good at this. And then he said you need to talk to more people. I knew what God meant. I was to quit my practice and write. So I did, stacey, and I didn't know how we were going to make it. Miraculously, trays of lasagna were left on our porch. It looked bleak, but I couldn't go back.
Speaker 1:
I felt like God had said that he wanted me to care for his people. Joel the enemy hates shepherds after God's own heart. So we are going to have to be incredibly smart, mature and like Jesus, very cunning, he paused. You must be harmless as doves, but wise as serpents. Do you understand this? Yes, I replied. Yet I have always related more to the dove and less with the serpent part. I've always been more of a wide eyed optimist with a touch of naivete. He didn't respond. So I asked how do I grow in cunning? Asked Jesus to teach you. He was and is incredibly cunning. John said Duh, joel Asked Jesus, I thought, abashed by the obviousness. We prayed together, asking Jesus for wisdom, and then we ended the call. John had thrown me into the deep end of the spiritual pool and, while it was somewhat unexpected, it was entirely refreshing. I felt like a young Luke Skywalker in the presence of Yoda, I had been clumsily attempting to stack rocks with the Force while he just effortlessly raised the X-wing from the swamp of Dagobah, and God was using this conversation to remove a mask that I had been unknowingly wearing for almost 30 years.
Speaker 1:
Over the next few weeks of prayer and journaling, jesus, like a kind older sibling, gently led me to the unknown persona I had put on long ago, right around the time of middle school. Wide eyed optimists with a touch of naivete these words were the words I used to describe myself in my discussion with John. I swirled them slowly in my mind like a glass of cavernet. My journal opened on the table in front of me. It's true, there's part of me that's lived much of my life naïve, like a spiritual force, scum, a Tommy Callaghan. But no, I said, a new thought dawning on me. I've lived more like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. I'd spent hours immulating him as a child. In that miserably abusive season of my life. I'd been so determined to appear fun, lovable, useful, loyal, talented and entirely safe. The persona worked for me. Being a fun, loving comedian got me elected in high school as student body vice president and basketball homecoming king.
Speaker 1:
Memories scrolled through my mind like old photographs. I saw a picture of my high school Halloween rally, of receiving the first place ribbon for our school wide costume contest. I was actually dressed from head to toe as the scarecrow from Oz. Later that same day, we had our top 10 senior photo shoot for the yearbook, an honor bestowed on 10 graduating seniors each year by the teachers and faculty. I didn't have time to wash off my face makeup prior, so I'm in the photo with my scarecrow face paint still on, and it appeared in our high school yearbook.
Speaker 1:
That way, this persona had become my mask, amplified in arenas and stadiums across North America. I was the happy go lucky guy just looking for adventure, and teens gravitated to the persona they experienced on stage. As I grew more self-aware in my 20s, I discovered that I didn't have to be the guy on the stage all the time. That was good progress, but God was coming for something behind this false identity. Now, being innocent, trusting, funny these are not bad personality traits, but this wasn't the full me and there were big limitations accompanying it. The wide-eyed optimist was keeping me from seeing the wounded child in armor and his ineffective coping strategies, and these were what my creator so desired to heal and rescue me from the next step toward embracing the authentic me, having a whole heart soaring into the better life he had prepared for me was to help me recognize my mask so I could be released from the restrictions of the persona that I had created so, so long ago. He desperately wants to do the same for you.
Speaker 1:
Each of us begins to craft a personality when we're just children. These personalities help us get our needs met, but there can be areas in them that limit us or aspects that are self-defeating, and as we grow older, it's appropriate to release them. I think author and psychologist Ian Morgan Crone does a great job of summing this up. Listen to this quote from him. Human beings are wired for survival. As little kids, we instinctually place a mask called personality over parts of our authentic self to protect us from the harms and make our way in the world Made up of in a qualities, coping strategies, conditioned reflexes and a defense mechanism, among lots of other things. Our personality helps us know and do what we sense is required to please our parents, to fit in and relate well with our friends, to satisfy the expectations of our culture and to get our basic needs met. Over time, our adaptive strategies become increasingly complex. They get triggered so predictably, so often and so automatically that we can't tell where they end and our true natures begin. Ironically, the term personality is derived from the Greek word for mask or persona, reflecting our tendency to confuse the masks we wear with our true selves, even long after the threats of early childhood have passed. Now we no longer have a personality, our personalities have us.
Speaker 1:
Jesus said in Matthew, chapter 5, verse 14 through 16. In the message paraphrase, he says you're here to be light, bringing out the God colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you lightbearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you out on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand, shine, keep open house, be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. You know your heart and soul were made to shine as brightly as Jesus, and God definitely hadn't designed me to live under the mask of a scarecrow. Now he placed me on a hilltop, on a light stand, so the real me could shine.
Speaker 1:
Though he's created each of us to be lightbearers keep open house, be generous with our lives, opening up to others Our natural tendency is to do the opposite. We hide our light, veil our faces shining with the brightness of his face. We bunker under protective face masks woven from the fibers of former pain and false persona. Annoyingly, we can mask our souls in a persona that distances us from our true self, our loved ones and even God. This chapter is really about learning how to distinguish between your persona the mask or your personality and your true, authentic self. This chapter will change your life and will bring you closer to your authentic self, which will bring you closer to your family and friends and closer to God.