Homecoming and Halloween

The month of October is sometimes just a crazy month; Homecoming, Halloween, and often times Red Ribbon Week. Oh and don’t forget the full moon!

I’m a school teacher so when these dress up days and breaks in our routines make their way in to our classrooms the best thing we know to do is hold on and ride the wave of abnormality. Praying to God it’ll be over soon!

Our school system begins the year in September, following Labor Day. Here’s what we often notice. Kids come in with a fresh cut and a new pair of shoes. They’re dressed differently and perhaps have grown a bit since last school year. Especially in 2020 since they’ve been out of school since March.

What they hope to do is establish an identity among their classmates that is seen as appropriate and acceptable. Look right, dress right, talk right, laugh at the right jokes, have a locker beside the right person, get in all the right classes, ride the right bus, play on the right team.

But as the school year unfolds some of that identity begins to fade into a distant background with peers they once hoped to impress.

The day comes when they wake up and look in the mirror and they don’t like what they see. So what do they do? They pretend it’s Homecoming Week. Or Halloween. They play dress up. They make a concerted effort to change their appearance to garner some human praise from those around them.

It may be feelings of loneliness and being left out. Depressed and anxious. Overwhelmed. Afraid. Tired. Defeated by some temptation. Aggravated by their own personality flaws. Wanting to escape the constant fighting at home. Wanting to run from the constant barrage of struggles they seem to encounter.

They put on a mask. Or makeup. Or a different set of clothes. Or seek new friends. Or write deep dark secrets in their diary. Or send pics to somebody they hope will notice. Or a Snap to someone they hope will listen. They begin to scream perhaps without even making a sound.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize is true for a lot of us; we’re willing to put on a lot of different masks and facades to cover up our current identity in search of something we believe will satisfy.

Kids and adults alike are willing to do this. It’s easy to see kids do this; the clothes, the shoes, the phones, the friends. But even adults are like this with their cars, boats, vacations, and homes. On a much larger scale.

Check out these two words; escape and expose.

When things don’t seem right, feel right, or look right, we escape. In search of something else we’re sure will satisfy. Or remove the bitter taste. We jump from place to place constantly trying to fill a void of happiness and peace. One mask at a time.

But God is making an effort to expose something much deeper than the mask we keep trying to wear to cover up who we really are. He knows it’s not the mask at all. It’s our heart. He wants to expose the true condition of our heart. No mask will ever work to provide for us what we really need or what we really long for.

How do you know we prefer to escape? Because Adam and Eve did that in the beginning. They ate the fruit and hid. They found a costume not fit for their real identity. They escaped. For a moment.

But what did God do? He exposed them. Not to shame them. But to remind them who He was and who they were. They weren’t meant to be covered with fig leaves. They weren’t meant to hide. They weren’t meant to escape. They weren’t meant to seek the pleasures of this world above Him. They weren’t meant to live in fear. He didn’t want them to dress themselves with some cheap substitute clothing; He wanted to clothe them in attire much more glamorous for an image bearer of God.

There’s a passage in the Bible that speaks of what we’re meant to put off and put on; this idea of the old and new. Paul says to put off the earthly things and to put on the new self ‘which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator’ (Colossians 3). He lists these sinful desires that rob us of our true identity that we are to expose and dispose of in our lives. Then He reminds us of the traits that should be visible in our lives as we are exposed then clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

So today as we participate in the festivities of dressing up and playing a part in some event may we be reminded that it shouldn’t be this way with the core identity of our lives! Don’t succumb to the false narrative that you need to be constantly changing the masks and facades of your life to fit in or feel important. Let God expose you then robe you in His righteousness!