What is Real?

You see a photograph accompanying a recipe for Eggs Benedict. You think, I can do that! It shows an artful presentation of egg, Canadian bacon, English muffin, and, of course, a rich-looking Hollandaise dripping over it all. Makes you want to jump right up and buy the ingredients, mess up your kitchen, and try the 42-step recipe, right? Maybe not. But the photo is enticing.

A commercial photographer friend once told me, for every "perfect" photo you see in a magazine, there are about fifty that didn't make the cut. If it's a fried egg, it usually means someone has fried up a gazillion eggs in order to get the one that looks just right for the photo shoot.

When decorating magazines show a blanket casually strewn across the arm of a sofa, if means a photographer's assistant has tossed it many times to get the right feel of "messiness". My favorite is the wind-blown look of gorgeous models with their shiny, silky hair blowing seductively. You know it's achieved by fans blowing in their faces.

What is real? Even today's Reality Television is, if not staged, then surely edited to present the scene or feeling the director wants. There's even a new reality show that shows the unreality of reality shows! Can you follow that?

As I look around, I see a lot of pretending going on--in my own life. When guests come to my home, I make sure it looks as tidy as possible; when I'm feeling unfriendly, I mask it with a smile and a cheery greeting; I usually don't leave the house without makeup (concealer being my best friend). And those Christmas letters or Facebook posts? Do we share the uglies of life? No way.

I guess deep down I am searching for a time and place where I can let it all hang out and be real, true to myself. This is one thing that makes my daily time of devotions (meditation, quiet time, appointment with God--whatever you want to call it) so special.

I can be real when:

• I read God's love letter to me (the Bible)
• when I talk with God (prayer)
• when I listen (meditate)

I can breathe in his love, I can be my true self.

Sarah Young, devotional writer of Jesus Calling, says it beautifully in her June 8 entry:

[God speaking] "Bring your most secret thoughts into the Light of My Love....Anything you bring to me I transform and cleanse from darkness. I know everything about you, far more than you know of yourself....I have all Power in heaven and on earth. Seek my face with a teachable spirit....be transformed."

Isn't it great he loves and accepts each of us, just as we are? Let's develop teachable spirits so God can transform us with his power.