Mark and I have often talked about how our society is so prone to wearing masks. We like to pretend that all is well and we have everything together all the time; our life has no problems, our families and our finances and our spiritual life are always in perfect order. I think that this is particularly true here in the south (although I may be mistaken; it may be just as prevalent in other areas of the country). We want everyone to think the best of us, from our families, to our employers or employees, and particularly the people we go to church with. I believe that this is a form of arrogance and self-idolatry. If I am capable of providing such a perfect life for myself and my family, I do not need God to do anything for me except to sit back, watch, and smile over what a good job I am doing. This is a very dangerous trap. Once I step into this vortex, escape is almost impossible. The longer I go pretending that everything is fine and that I have everything together, the worse things get and the more difficult it is to finally admit that I desperately need God to take control. Self-sufficiency has long been one of the most admirable traits in our country. We talk about the pioneer spirit and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. So we try to hide our inadequacies, first from others, then from God, and finally from ourselves. We live a lie and we live in fear that someone will find out that our life is a lie. Worse, we get to a point where we have ourselves fooled (our Sunday School teacher, Kyle Howell, says that the 11th Commandment is, "Thou shalt not kid thyself"!).

This week I read the novel When Joy Came to Stay by Karen Kingsbury. This is the first of her books that I have read. I find that a lot of Christian fiction is poorly written and boringly predictable. You know the outcome of the story and can even predict much of the dialogue before you finish the first chapter. This book was different and it dealt with the topic of lying about mistakes. In this case, the character who was lying had such overwhelming fall-out from her lies that she wound up in a psychiatric hospital. Mrs. Kingsbury demonstrates through her characters how once we begin listening to the lie that we are "fine", it becomes more and more difficult to listen to the Spirit of God telling us that we need Him. I wish that I could purchase about 1000 copies of this book and start handing them out to everyone I meet. Instead, I will be content to simply recommend that you visit your local library and borrow it for yourself. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!


(No, I can't claim this picture!)