And so it begins....

This being my first post, it should be impressive, eloquent, and profound. I cannot promise any of those things...all I have to offer is what has most recently been on my mind, and that is what I hope to offer in this blog: authenticity.
One of my pet peeves, and I do have many even if I don’t show them, is fake people. I cannot stand it when someone has a big fake smile on their face, or is pretending to be nice or interested in you or something. It is so obvious when people are acting fake, everyone has a “fake radar”, yet fake people exist and persist. I know that as you are reading this there are probably multiple people coming to your mind, as in my case.
However, there are other people who are really good at, let’s say not being fake, but not being real. These are people who are so good at faking it that they can fool others and sometimes even themselves. These people are hypocritical in their actions and lifestyle and are either really good at playing the game, they don’t want to disappoint people around them, or they’ve come to a point where they just go through the motions and grow complacent. There are numerous reasons why people act fake. Some are superficial and there really is nothing below the surface (another one of my pet peeves is stupid people, and I’m not referring to the people who cannot help it….and yes I know that makes me look incredibly arrogant, intellectually elite, and whatever other word the thesaurus would pull up; but let’s be honest, we’ve all met them), others don’t really know what to do anymore, some don’t like you so instead of telling you they fake it, some have had experiences that change their attitude, and others don’t even know why they are faking it and at this point it’s too difficult to be real.
While I can’t stand fake people, I absolutely love authentic, genuine people. These are the people who are purposeful and passionate; being around them makes you want to love people even more deeply. While these people have contagious personalities, there are other people that I would characterize differently that are still genuine and authentic. Some of these people are my close friends, while others I may barely know but their realness with me has made a lasting impact on my life. One key component to authenticity with others is trust. I cannot remember who said it exactly, but he used an analogy depicting trust to bank accounts. He said that people have accounts of trust that build up and spend or use it when they meet people. The more time the person takes in investing in someone else, the more trust he or she gives.
My junior year of high school my English teacher explained how to find the theme of a novel. She drew a chart on the board said that everything in a book that an author uses, whether it be symbols, motifs, characterization, or analogies etc, points to the central message of the book. She stressed that there is only one theme per book. Many people use different words to describe it the theme, there is and can only be one. I thought about this idea for a very long time knowing that it was a very controversial issue in the academic world because most people say that there are multiple themes to one work. However, I concluded that logically there can only be one central point to a circle, by definition, so the same concept rationally coincides to the theme of a work (there are many other analogies to explain this idea if would like to discuss it, but for the sake of the length of this post, I won’t elaborate anymore). I continued exploring this idea in literature and challenged it as well as other people who challenged me on it, but couldn’t think of a superior explanation. I am a realistic person that likes what I learn in school to be personally applicable to my life. So my mind naturally thinks of ways to make an academic seemingly irrelevant concept fit into a life lesson (this is probably another reason I hated Calculus…I could never figure out how finding the derivative of a function would ever be beneficial to me). I thought about this one for a long time and finally came to a conclusion.
Life can be compared to a novel; it has an author, it is complex and has many different aspects analogous to symbols or motifs, which technically can be anything and everything. However, each of these things must have a purpose and point to something because I believe that God is intentional about everything. Thus, I concluded that there is a theme to life. There is and must be one concept that makes everything else makes sense. I knew that it had something to do with God, because roughly speaking, He is the writer, but I couldn’t quite come up with what the idea was…Through a series of events and conversations (the most specific being with Chloe Riss one night after the Rush. We were just looking at the stars realizing our insignificance compared to God's significance and I shared how I thought the theme/theory of life idea with her). I know that the theme of the life has everything to do with God’s love for mankind and the process of Jesus redeeming giving humanity the opportunity to commune with Him forever (John 3:16). However, this is the theme of life from God’s perspective; thus, the theme of life from my perspective must be my personal response to this. There are two things that easily describe the theme of life that vary in diction but are merely the same thing: Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut 6:5) and For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21). Love is the center of these because God is the center of life, He is love, and our interaction with Him must be centered around it. Therefore, everything that I do either honors Christ with my life or dishonors Him. Everything in my life points to God in one way or another. While I change, my God does not. I want to note that I don’t say these words lightly. I know that the Judeo-Christian God is the real and only God. I don’t use Him simply as a cop-out or a “card” to intellectually make sense of anything. He is what makes everything real. C.S. Lewis says it best, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." I now see everything with the theme of life in mind. Everything, even carpet or pencils or blankets (the things I just looked at in my room), points to the theme of life….points to Christ.
In an attempt to come full circle, I want to go back to my first point about fake people. While I’ll never understand why people are fake or even why I act fake sometimes, I know that I without a doubt prefer people who are genuine and authentic. Sometimes though in life it’s difficult to be honest…whether it be with ourselves, others, or even God. There is no reason to be dishonest but we are because we don’t want to hurt or disappoint. Unfortunately, as humans we always do the opposite of what we should do. Whenever we do anything whether it be a job, school, or living the Christian life, the easiest trap to fall into is to get caught up in everything but reaching for the goal. The song by Mathew West “Motions” speaks of this, “I don’t want to spend my whole life asking: What if I had given everything [to Christ]?” This question penetrates to the heart of how I’ve been feeling lately. Because I go to a Christian school I hear from a variety of Christian speakers, friends, musicians, teachers constantly. While these things are good, it’s easy to grow complacent and not be proactive in my walk with Christ. This is the very opposite of what should happen, but many times is the result. I live each day knowing this, and as a result must be able to fight the battles of fakeness in my own life and replace it with authenticity. I know many biblical truths, but should never lose focus on the God of these truths. I can’t look at God’s actions without looking at the character of God in His entirety. I can’t simply read my Bible or listen to Christian music without thinking about and actually communing with the Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. If I do any of these things without honoring God with my everything, without the theme of life in mind, I am being the very thing I hate: fake. It’s easy to be fake in this sense, to fake Christianity is easy especially amongst Christians. Authenticity is increasingly becoming rare. While sometimes it’s difficult to identify when people are faking it, the easiest thing to detect is when someone is being real…it oozes from their very being. They are the epitome of Matthew 5:16; their light shines before men and points them to Christ, resulting in their being praising God as well as everyone else they come in contact with. Christianity is not about stringent rules, it is about real people living a real life for the purpose in which they were intended. This is my goal: to not grow complacent, go through the motions, but make sure that everything I do exemplifies the theme positively. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.