“Impossible to Spot”That is what they say about great acting: “…impossible to spot.”. What exactly does that mean? Well, it means if one acts convincingly enough, no one will ever know they are seeing an act. Just this past weekend, I went to see Derek Johnson’s daughter, Jada, in a teen production of Romeo and Juliet. As I had suspected, she was fantastic; but I noticed (with my untrained eye) that Jada’s performance was unique in one aspect to all the other actors’: she played two separate roles (no, neither role was Juliet, but I think she would have made a good one). Having been in a production of Shakespeare at a young age myself, I know what a challenge it is to learn the lines, the staging, the entrances and exits. And not only do you have to learn your lines, but also everyone else’s so you can memorize your cues. It’s a demanding task being an actor; and playing two roles simultaneously makes a difficult job that much harder. It takes a lot of stamina and energy, both mental and physical, to play two characters: to learn two ways of speaking; to adopt two different sets of behavior; to deliver two sets of dialogue; in essence, to BE two separate people at the same time. Now, I’ve never played two characters in a play. In fact I’ve only been in one play in my entire life. So how do I know it can be exhausting being two different people at the same time? I know it because I am human. We all know it, don’t we? We are by nature duplicitous, and have been since sin crept into the world in Adam and Eve’s time. Once sin had its influence on Adam and Eve, they changed, didn’t they? They changed because they had eaten the fruit God had instructed them not to, and now they both had something they felt needed hiding. Genesis 3: 7-8 “Then
the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked;
and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. Knowing that they sinned, they hid, didn’t they.? They hid themselves so no one could see it, or so they thought. How often do we do this exact same thing? Oh, we don’t hide in the shrubs, no. But we hide nonetheless. We hide behind a second self we create. This second self is the one we show our brothers and sisters in Christ, our families, our friends. This second self is usually the best version of ourselves we can muster: more righteous, more gregarious, more forgiving, more generous, more kind. Sometimes we even try to show our second self to God; we show him our good self, the self we would like to be; our ideal self. Do we think He’s fooled? Like we said earlier about great acting, it can be impossible to spot; but not for God. With God nothing is impossible [Luke 1:37]. We need to stop hiding behind these second selves we create, because these facades keep us from working on our real selves, the selves with all the warts, the bumps, the ugliness. We cover up our messes instead of cleaning them up, don’t we? We do this not because we have an active wish to deceive (at least I hope not), it’s simply because it is easier to be someone else than to be ourselves. Why go to all the trouble and effort of making changes when we can just appear to have made them? Matthew 23:25-26 “’Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.’” We need to make an effort to see that our outward self is merely a reflection of our inner self. That we are honest about who we are with ourselves and with others. How do we do this? The best way we have, as Christians, is simply to put on Christ. Change our attitudes and actions to better reflect his. BE the selves we want to be instead of just acting. Romans 13:14 “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” We can be the best
actors in the world, we can perfect our act until it’s impossible
for our fellow man to spot; but is this a real accomplishment? Is this
time and energy well-spent? Do we seek the praise of men over the praise
of God? If we do, we need to wise up, and clean up our act. — Paul Seely, August 7, 2011 |