Reality Check

I guess I had reached that cross-road, I had reached that point where I could stare in the mirror and not be pleased with the reflection that stared back at me. Even though the laws of Physics tried to comfort me about the left hand looking like the right in a reflection, the truth was blatantly clear, in black and white and in that moment I was certain: THIS IS NOT THE PERSON I AM SUPPOSED TO BE.

Years had gone by and somehow I started getting used to the ideologies of how society defined me and slowly adopting them as I my own. With trying to fit into some half-baked, not purely-processed theory about what to be, how to act, what to say and when to say it, I lost out on the opportunity to grow, grow at the person I was meant to be.

You see, we live in a highly fictitious world, where people’s concepts about life are purely birthed out of some comatose, fantasy project displayed on T.V. We have let fantasy determine who a lady, and who a real gentleman is, what to wear, what to eat, the works. The demerit of this is that in as much as we may be captivated by this highly fabricated lifestyle, it is hard to be pragmatic. We cannot honestly thrive in a real life setting because everything is merely a bunch of well-thought out but difficult to live theory.

That misfortune is what I found myself in. And it was not long before it became visibly clear even in the little things of life: setting unrealistic goals, harnessing absurd ideas, like what! It was not rocket science that something was amiss.

Here’s my theory: all these twisted rules and standards we have created are a sign of our brokenness, our dejected, hopeless state. In all of us is the desire to be ultimately satisfied. To be content and happy is the quest of many a man, but sadly we seek this right desire in the wrong places, thereby ending up in a confused maze of a lost identity, to all intents and purposes.

And so many things, like opium have sought to numb us and give us a short, warm-fuzzy feeling of “I have attained” but when the feeling melts away like butter in the sun, we are back to our dejected state. The sad part is not many of us are bold enough to accept that we are a mess. And so we carry ourselves round, with fake smiles, trying to act whole when we are broken pieces of glass.

Many a Christian friend will chant the old faithful ‘God is good all the time’ without fully believing it; without fully appreciating what ‘all the time’ really means. And you see this especially in those dark days, leaving you to guess that maybe, just maybe when they coined the phrase, they only had warm, sunny days in mind.

I grew tired of all this, and I honestly wanted more. I wanted a real experience.

And so I ventured on a path of self-discovery; of understanding my nature and not trying so hard to look good when I didn’t feel good, or of not saying the right things when I didn’t mean them. I had had enough of playing church when my heart was far away from Him; of telling people Jesus loves you when I didn’t, in my heart of hearts, believe that He did love me (I know, as hard as it sounds, not many of us have sunk and appreciated the idea that God really loves us… if we did, we wouldn’t be mutilating our souls the way we do).

And it was then that I discovered that it is okay to be weak, it is okay to cry, it is okay to be broken because with that realization, I knew I was on the way to achieving my objective. Realizing you have a problem is the first step in finding the solution, they say.

In as much as the relationship with God is premised on principle, it is also highly emotional. I mean, He sympathizes with us, ‘He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities.’ And God, more than anything else, wants us to be real with Him, cause it is only then that He can save us, only then that He can mend that brokenness and give us the satisfaction we so desire. We don’t win anything by pretending; by looking good and saying appropriate things when deep down it’s all a fake garb used in a bid to attain approval from people who have set standards that Jesus would condemn!

And so for the first time in years, I stopped. I stopped all these games and looked long and hard at myself and realized that things needed to change and I was so determined to live life the way He intended, not the way society decided, not the way the media wanted me to. I decided to get the blueprint and follow in the Great Architect’s master plan…after all, His way is always the best.

“...For I have created Him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.” [Isaiah 43:8]