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It was a long ride to the beach, and you know what high schoolers do when they get bored on a bus ride -- they find ways to make things less boring! Another guy, we'll call him Jeff, was capitalizing on this. He commanded the attention of the entire bus, particularly the girls, with his quick wit and seemingly endless supply of cheesy jokes. Sometimes, cheesy jokes are the best jokes.
Kevin, however, didn't seem as amused as the rest of them. He watched the charade from the backseat with half a smirk and a hint of sadness.
When we arrived at the beach that night, I got a chance to have a little 1 on 1 time with my friend Kevin (not his real name). As we walked along the powdery, moonlit shoreline, I asked him what was up. The first words out of his mouth were "Sometimes I feel like I should be different."
Those words cut straight to the core of me. I knew exactly what he meant.
You see, I was one of those guys in high school who really wanted to be funny, but didn't quite know how to be yet. It's an attractive thing, the ability to make people laugh. It gives you the security of having visible proof that people aren't having a terrible time when they're around you. That's as good as gold when you're in high school. I grew to depend on it. But I didn't know how Tim Branch was funny; I just knew how other people were funny. And so I imitated the humor of my friends.
Ever seen someone try to imitate a different person's humor before? Not as good as the real thing, normally. Sometimes, it's even painful to watch.
I have imitated so hard all my life in hopes of winning approval and affection from people. Even down to my laugh, or my walk. The level of self consciousness I would feel as I would walk through a parking lot in high school, checking my form in the vague reflections of car windows, still makes me sad. But welcome to my adolescent life. I finally thought one day in my early twenties, "How would I walk if I wasn't looking at myself through everyone else's eyes ALL THE TIME?" I would walk however I felt like. That's the best way for me to walk.
How would Tim Branch act if he wasn't always looking at himself through the eyes of the people whose affirmation he longs for?
Maybe that's how I should act. Maybe there's power and freedom in that.
We walked a while, me and Kevin. We walked along in the darkness, talking about life and people and purpose. I heard all his stories of longing to be the one up in front of the bus, garnering all the attention from all the pretty girls. I told him all mine.
Then we talked about something different. We discussed what it would be like if God had something better for each of us than cheap imitation. I told him about the places where God had shown me my real self, my best self, and how different it was from the people I had imitated in high school and college. And as we talked, he and I both began to name off some of the qualities of his true self.
That information frees people.
As Kevin began to see the ways he was different from Jeff as good things, he finally stopped disowning the gifts God gave him to influence and teach people. This kid may not have been a stand up comedian, but he was brilliant. And there was power in his Original Design -- power he largely hadn't used.
If we were to live truly and freely out of our own gifts, we'd become a real problem to the enemy. That's why his main goal is to keep us from believing they have any worth. The enemy shuts down our gifts by making us think they're not gifts. He makes us think we need to be someone else instead -- and thereby steals away our world-changing power through fear. Do you really think people would like the way you normally are? Be more like this person... at least you KNOW that's safe!
It doesn't feel safe to be "us" because we haven't seen anyone else do it before. It's untested because it's original. But in my experience, it's the only way to experience true life. And as a side note, I've never seen someone truly living out of their original design that wasn't loved and valued by their community.
In this world, there are personality imitators, and there are personality trailblazers.
Which one will you be?
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