"An Explaining Mechanism Kicks In"

If I was a little cooler, I would remember the show that I heard that line on. I bring up the “explaining mechanism” because I think it is one of the chief hindrances to following Christ in genuine community.

We have explaining mechanisms that we use with others in order for us to feel “ok” about ourselves before them. We explain ourselves. We justify ourselves. I catch myself doing that when somebody notices a new product I might have bought.

“I got it on sale…”

“We really needed it…”

Why do I feel the need to explain it? At the heart of what we do when we begin explaining ourselves to others is that we begin answering to them. We begin fearing them and we begin posturing ourselves so that in our day of court before them, we can come out in the right. And the sad thing about it all is that THEY DON’T CARE!

Though no one cares, our posturing hides our true selves from others and puts invisible boundaries to our ability to build friendship. When we are justifying ourselves before others, we are living duplicitously. We are projecting a person we want others to see. What happens is that they never get to know the real person behind ourselves. And neither do we.

A spiral can occur in this situation. The more we project, the more we believe that we are the people that we project. As we distance others from our real selves, we distance ourselves from who God made us to be. When we experience the inevitable dissonance of this false self, an insecurity is produced which accelerates the whole thing even further.

This is one place where following Christ makes all of the difference in our experience of community. If he is the one who justifies us (Rom 3:24), we no longer have to. In the safety of his grace, we can be honest about ourselves to others and our self and then take the long journey, in the company of others, to genuine self understanding. The truth, as they say, becomes our friend.

Richard Foster speaks of this in his chapter on Solitude in The Celebration of Discipline:

“Silence is one of the deepest disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification. One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier. We don’t need to straighten others out…. Perhaps more than anything else, silence brings us to believe that God can care for us—‘reputation and all.’”

Maybe a way for us to trust God in following Christ is to simply say less about ourselves, trust God with what others think about us and focus more of our energies on what others have to say about themselves.