Comfortable in Your Skin

So…What’s Wrong With This Picture?

1COR 2:9 However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"

So goes the great ironies of life. I am "teaching" SteveO to drive my truck, while his Grandpa refuses to let me use his big Yazoo mower because Stephen is the better pilot. That means the old guy gets to destroy things with a much smaller weapon, the commercial weedeater. Hey, I’ve only knocked the cable off a few times, and everything is cool, unless, of course the AllieCat is watching one of those Man-Hater Channels (We, Lifetime, Oxygen) then she will take the Weedeater to my legs. What is it about women and these channels? There’s always a creepy man who gets done in by a woman with a .38 Special. Thank goodness for CMT and Spike TV. And what does it say about me, a husband who makes her qualify two times a year with a .38 snubby at the range? After a tight pattern of good shooting, I put a silhouette target on the board and tell her to squeeze all five shots off rapidly. Head, neck, chest, gut, crotch. Straight line.

"I think you got'em, AllieCat."
"Great. May I go now? Lifetime is running an all day marathon of creepy-man movies"
"Uh, yea, fine with me", I say, "Uh, could you give me that revolver back?"

**********
SteveO and I were in the truck one day, burning $3.00/gal gasoline so he could basically get his 15 year old fix behind the wheel. This is a great place to talk; he can’t escape the cab of my truck and must listen to my ramblings.

I asked him, "What does ‘being comfortable in your skin’ mean?"

It is a rhetorical question, as he could have invented this idiom. This is a kid, from an early age, who would look an adult in the eye and carry on long conversations, usually about sports or the outdoors, nonetheless, he is one of those people that you just like being around. I am not bragging, just repeating something I have heard time and time again as he has matured.

"Let’s see...I think it means that you don’t have to be fake or follow the crowd, just be who you are and don’t worry so much about what others think," was his reply.

"Good answer! You win the daily double!" I said.

We talked a little more about this, which opened the door for a few more words about the angst of the teenage years, and other assorted growing pains.

His simple philosophy translates easily and naturally into his spiritual life; he is not ashamed of the gospel in the least and is always willing to lead prayer at team functions and other activities. Not that this in itself is proof of his faith, just a confirmation of the comfortable clothes he wears. It is a trait that I admire in his young life and pray that my faith will come that natural and simple.

I love the scripture listed above. (1COR 2:9) When we think we have it all figured out, we read something like this and realize that our senses cannot even comprehend how much He loves us. We feel like we have to put on some fake religious skin, all the while we are cameleons at heart, because we think we can hide all of our warts from this great God by blending in to the religious landscape.

I see so many real people in the gospels who came in contact with Christ. His disciples, the Centurion, the woman with a chronic illness, the Canaanite woman, children. There were just as many phonies, the Pharisees, the rich young ruler, Judas.

It is my desire to walk in a place of realness with Christ. I want that comfortable skin. This is not cheap grace, it is simply catching a glimpse of that unseen, unheard, unmindful love, despite my own flaws. So where am I? Brutal honesty tells me I am somewhere on the spectrum between real and phony. But if He knows the number of hairs on my head, it seems pointless to be anything but honest with Him!

Mark the Mad Hatter
Prov.17:22