How do you honestly feel when you are “Unmasked”…”Unmasked” either with God and/or with another person? Think about it for a minute. For many of us, there is a fear that passes through us…a sense of insecurity of not be accepted, loved, or ‘good enough’ if truly found out or exposed for what we really are deep down inside at our core…down at the very depths of our heart and soul. Now, let’s take a few steps back on this doorstep and take a brief panoramic snapshot of this “Unmasked” thought…both from a personal story and then from one of my favorite “Unmasked” chapters in the Scriptures. I was on my way to the airport riding a taxi…as I rode, I looked at the cab driver’s eyes and face…I asked him what his name was…he said, ‘Pete.’ I have been asking God to give me the ability to see beyond the surface and beyond the façade…as Isaiah 11 talks about the ability to have spiritual eyes to see things we normally cannot see on the surface. I could see Pete’s heart was heavy…his eyes communicated in short order the depth of the pain and burden he was carrying…as we rode to the airport, I asked God to help me to ’step into Pete’s space’ and venture out to engage Pete…so, with His help…I did. I asked him a few gauging questions, and as soon as I showed that I wasn’t just asking to kill time…I looked at him in his eyes and told him not with words but with my eyes, “I love you…I don’t know your story…I don’t know your pain…but, I love you, Pete…” I asked God to redeem and be present in these 20-minutes sitting with Pete in a very captive intersection of two lives. Pete began to “Unmask” and share his heavy story…how his dad was a minister and walked out on his mom when Pete was 12…how Pete had fathered 5 different children to 3 different women in different states and only was able to see 1 of the children on any kind of a regular basis…Pete’s eyes began to well up in tears as he shared his heart and his pain. When we came to airport…we pulled up to the curb and then just sat…I did not want to jump out quickly…I didn’t want to say some short trivial “God speak” or “trivial Religiosity” and be on my merry way…I asked God to redeem Pete’s “Unmasking” and to love and speak through me to him…the conversation…the time with Pete in the car…how we ended our time together…all of this God ordained connection melted me…my heart was ready to explode in tears and in a cry to God to meet Pete where Pete was so that Pete could see his utter emptiness…his utter brokenness…his utter mess…and that God was absolutely crazy in love with Him & had given him a gift that no one else could give him…His son…His life. There was real, God-felt presence in that intersection and connection when Pete decided to “Unmask” and not “do the deal” or “BS” or “Blah, Blah, Blah” his way through the questions I had asked…he decided to step out from his mask to share the painful context of his life and journey.

Now, look at one of our superheroes, King David, in Psalm 51 and 2 Samuel 11-12. Most if not all of us know the story all too well. David got bored while his men were at battle…as he got bored one day, he saw Bathsheba bathing outside naked…he lusted after her and committed adultery & got her pregnant…he then schemed on how to have her husband, Uriah, killed by throwing him on the front line of the battle…this entire soap opera scene unfolds for us in II Samuel 11-12. When God finally steps into David’s space and brings him face to face with the reality of his brokenness and mess, He does so by using His prophet, Nathan, who uses a story to showcase the depth of David’s sin. David responds by “Unmasking” himself in complete brokenness, humility, and repentance crying out to God for forgiveness, grace, healing, and wholeness. Look at a few excerpts from his prayer in Psalm 51 after his confrontation and repentance cry (“The Message”): “…Scrub away my guilt; soak out my sins in your laundry…God make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life…Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!…I learned God worship when my pride was shattered…” There is a sense of real, fresh, no-nonsense authenticity in David’s “Unmasking” himself before Nathan and God…what a picture and model for our lives today! Where are you in this paradigm?

I don’t know where you are today…you may be like my cab driver Pete or like King David in terms of the Depth of ’stuff’ and ‘junk’ that you are carrying…or you may only have a small fraction of their load…whatever the reality of your situation, the truth is still the same…God calls you and me intentionally to “Unmask” ourselves first before Him and then before one another as part of His connected community such that we can shed the façade, the false pretense, the false ego, the false mask, and the false self and truly walk and live in His context of real, authentic humility and brokenness realizing: I can’t…but He can…I am broken and need God…It is truly going to be okay…it truly will be okay when you and I embrace our Father’s love…His gift…His grace…we can lay all our junk at His feet and “Unmask” and know with absolute certainty we are loved…we are accepted…we are prized…we are blessed by our great Father and God…may we all feast on this exhilarating Life Truth today!

Resting in Him,

Jared S. Faellaci