I am a poser, a fake, a phony, a counterfeit.
Reading a book called “Wild At Heart,” that was lent to me by a good friend, I began to realize how much of my life is lived for the world than for God.
I have this kind of hipster mentality that we all get in thinking ‘I will be different.’ I will do something wild and crazy with my life, and go on this year long mission in service for God. This is what I am thinking, when in reality, I am still falling so short to a life fully dedicated to my Father.
I am constantly saying things like, “I am hungry and tired of these small portions of food,” when there are people saying that they wish they had food. I constantly battle with my wants and needs than with God’s wants and needs for me.
I love my worldly comforts and want to be so comfortable that I sometimes forget to be uncomfortable for Christ.
I try to fit in this box that the world has designed for me. I try to conform to people’s expectations for me and rarely conform to my Father’s expectations. And I am sick of it.
I try so hard to please people, but when I fall short, I lose my happiness and feel like a sloppy mess. I forget to run to my Father in my times of trouble and instead, I run to the world.
“The world is not a place or a set of behaviors – it is any system built by our collective sin, all our false selves coming together to reward and destroy each other. Take all of those posers out there, put them together in an office or a club or a church, and what you get is what the scripture means by the world.” (Wild At Heart)
This quote from Wild At Heart reminds me a lot of a book that my dad used to read to me as a child called “You Are Special” by Max Lucado. In this book, a wood maker named Eli creates all of these wooden people called Wemicks. All of the Wemicks live together in a small village below the wood maker’s house. Day to day the Wemicks walk around giving each other dots and stars. Dots for the things that they do not like about each other and stars for the things that they do. One Wemick in particular named Punchello has more dots than any other. Puchello feels inadequate seeing all of the other Wemicks with their stars until one day, he sees one Wemick with none. When he asks her why she does not have any dots or stars, she explains to him that she simply visits the wood maker every day and talks with him. That way the dots and stars don’t stick. Punchello hesitantly goes to the wood makers house to discover a great, big man sitting at a work bench with tools the size of his body. Punchello tries to walk out when he hears the wood maker call his name. Going to him a little nervous because of all of the dots he has, Punchello sits down and begins to talk to him about how he had met Lucia. The wood maker simply tells him “Yes, I know. I have been waiting for you to come visit me.” When Punchello asks Eli how Lucia has no dots, he simply says, “Don’t worry about what the other Wemmicks say, and the dots won’t stick.” With that, Punchello hops off of the table and walks out the door promising to come back, and a single dot falls off of him.
I love this book because I think it is so accurate to life. Many of us, including myself, are all walking around giving people dots and stars in our minds and judging them. In reality, we are all an ugly mess of dots, and that’s how you and I will remain unless we go to our wood maker every day.
God is calling me and you, not just in the times when we are most sad and need Him, but in an every day marriage together. I don’t know about you, but I am sick of the world.
I am sick and tired of being clothed in a mess of dots given to me by false lies of the devil instilled into the minds of others.
I am sick of being on an unbalanced teeter-totter, continuously trying to keep myself balanced in a circus act for the world, posing to show all of you and everyone else the fake me.
My name is Sam Caruso, and I am sinful. I mess up every day. I make judgments of people. I try to get the perfect picture to post to Facebook to make myself look good. I try to make my flesh look appealing for others. I look at porn and have messy thoughts in my mind a lot of the time, and much, much more.
My name is Sam Caruso and that is what I am without Christ. In Christ, I am a perfect bride. I am holy, pure without a single blemish. My name is Sam Caruso, and with Christ, I have not a single dot.
Many times I feel like Punchello. I feel and act like a little kid that covers up the broken cookie jar with chocolate covered fingers. I run from my Father and fear the every day relationship with Him because I am sinful. I am sinful, and my Father knows it. He sees the chocolate on my fingers and the broken cookie jar, and He sees my lie. He picks me up off the kitchen floor and hugs me and clothes me in His love. He whispers in my ear, “I forgive you, Sam. I love you, and you are Mine.”
You can run, but you can never hide from God, and I personally am done hiding. I want God to pick me up and hug me. I want my daily love from my Father because without that love, my day is empty.
I know that following God is going to be so hard. God is going to challenge all of us when we follow Him. Many times we will not want to do what He is calling us to do because the world will look at that call from God and judge it. But don’t worry about what they think, and the dots and stars won’t stick.
We do not need our approval from the world. Get off of your teeter-totter and let God be your firm foundation and solid ground.
It will be hard, and you may never see your reward here on Earth, but I promise you that when the time comes and God calls you up to heaven, when you are there and you see Jim, Alex, or Sally, when you see those people who might not have made it, but because of your commitment to God, they are there with you. That will be your reward and what could be more rewarding than that?
Finally, one last thing that I loved from the book Wild At Heart is when the author says,
“The world of posers is shaken by a real man or a real women. They’ll do whatever it takes to get you back in line – threaten you, bribe you, seduce you, undermine you. They crucified Jesus. But it didn’t work did it? You must let your strength show up. Remember Christ in the garden, the sheer force of His presence? Many of us have actually been afraid to let our strength show up because the world doesn’t have a place for it. Fine. The world’s screwed up. Let people feel the weight of who you are and deal with it.” (Wild At Heart).
Don’t be shaken by the world. Don’t leave your place in the front lines of God’s army to join your place in the front lines of the world’s army. You don’t need to pose anymore, and neither do I because God is living in us and greater is the one living inside of me than He who is living in the world.
Be greater, be stronger, be a warrior for God. Take up your spot in the front lines for God and don’t be shaken.
Love you all. Sam.
