he qualities I highly value in people I choose to be close to are honesty, integrity, godliness, straightforwardness, humility, an ease with oneself, a passionate love for God (that actually shows), and a pure enjoyment of the Word. I like to hang around people like that. All my close friends exemplify these qualities, and to be in their presence is sheer joy.
But the characteristic I value most in those I keep close to, and in people I respect but who are not so close, is transparency. For me, that means that you can see their heart, their vulnerabilities. No cloaking, no hiding themselves, no posturing, just a refreshing realness—where it doesn’t take rocket science to get a sense of who they are.
I suppose that’s why I’m so attracted to David. He was the consummate “man’s man,” the “go-to guy” in crises, the life of the party, but yet so tender and open. Samuel described him as “a man after . . . [God’s] own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14). I don’t know about you, but more than anything I want God to say that about me.
But many people I encounter are not that open, not that vulnerable, not that willing to share of themselves—with anyone. A “virus” of self-protection has spread throughout the land. Amazingly, you see it even among God’s people: So afraid to be hurt; so needy yet so unwilling to reach out—even to other people of God.
This malady of concealing our true selves and staying behind a safe veneer is at the rotten core of this thing of self-protection. We have raised it to a sophisticated level where we live not just in self-protection but purposeful deception of ourselves in conveyance with other people. When it comes to many people, what you see is not what you get.
The Origin of Self-Protection
Have you ever taken time to read the revealing words in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve stepped over the line on their way to that tragic point of no return (at least as far as their face-to-face communion with God)? The words are devastatingly revealing and so painfully naked, showing in graphic fashion why we do what we do.
Consider the words that gushed out of that sad saga of two people who had it all: shame, covering, hiding, fear, and blame (an absence of personal responsibility).
As you can see, this thing of self-protection and non-transparency is in our DNA. It is natural to us. But notice something else lurking just beneath the surface in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve’s loss of transparency had its greatest impact first in their relationship with God. But the direct by-product of that loss of transparency with God was their loss of transparency with each other. The greatest of human relationships suffered immediately.
After Adam “checked out” emotionally and physically from Eve in their encounter with God (“It was the woman You gave me”), you get the feeling that Eve wondered whether she could trust her husband now, given that when the pressure was on, he might just walk away. And Adam must have battled feelings of resentment that this woman “set him up” to lose everything.
Remember, these are not fictional characters, but real people with real emotions and real responses to hurts and pains. And, like them, once we’ve been hurt or we’ve failed, or any of a million other things that suggest things didn’t go so well, maybe we don’t put ourselves out there anymore. Maybe we find it safer to show the world one face, but never our real selves. It’s easier that way.
Here’s the point: When we’re transparent with God, we can be absolutely real and transparent with others. Because if God knows us fully, still loves and accepts us, we are in great shape. It frees us up to love others fully, and to give of ourselves completely—even if it means running the risk of being hurt by those with whom we try to come close.
But it’s worth it. Transparency is a powerful way to live!
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Fredrick A. Russell, formerly senior pastor of the Miracle Temple Seventh-day Adventist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, was recently elected president of the Allegheny West Conference, with headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.