How to Sharpen Your Image

 

What do you want people to see when they look at you or notice when they're around you?  It seems we all present who we want others to see.  We want people to see a confident person, a happy person, funny person, an interesting person, a successful person, an attractive and fit person, a person with wonderful and happy kids, and loving and happy relationships.

What do you want potential employers to see when they look at your resume to get you in the door?  It has been reported based on surveys that 70% of Americans have lied on a job resume, on paper.  Interestingly enough, even more, 80% lie during the face to face interview, directly to the potential employers face!  Why?  If HR sees who I really am, they won't hire me! (But they'd be more satisfied with a fraud??) 

I saw an article on the job search site 'Indeed' called, "How to Brand Yourself in 9 Simple Steps".  What is branding?  They explain it this way, "Branding refers to the ways in which you establish a perceived image of an organization, product, service or person."  A perceived image?  The focus is not on trying to present to others who you are, but who you want them to PERCEIVE you to be.  Humanity seems to be becoming more and more expert at this.

What do you want people to see with your posts on Instagram, Facebook, X, and other social media sites?  "Likes" of course!  And "You are so beautiful!", "Stunning!", "What a stud!", "Man you're looking ripped!"  "You have such perfect kids!"  "You two have so much fun together!"  "Your (car, house, yard, job, stuff) is so amazing.", and countless other affirmations and validations.  Filters aren't just for photographs on social media. Not only do I not want to show my physical flaws, but my life flaws.  I'm not going to show those imperfections, I'm going to post photos of who I WANT you to see.  I have to filter out my flaws and wrinkles, I have to have the camera at a certain angle or pose a certain way in order to hide my perceived imperfections.  You're going to see my straight A student, not my kid who is failing algebra.  You're going to see my dates and vacation pictures with my wife, not the blow out argument we had on the way home or my hemorrhaging  bank account that can't keep up with it all.  Who are you trying to present to the world? Who are you presenting to the world?  You? Or who you WANT people to see?

This propensity to present some sort of an image to the world begins when we're very young.  When my boys were two years old and up, they were all about superheroes.  Batman, Superman, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles.  It's been said that kids do this to feel more powerful, more helpful, to be stronger than they are, to feel more courageous than they actually are.  When the boys put on the Power Rangers uniforms, they BECAME that persona.  You could see their countenance change immediately when the costume was on.  They had on their game face!  Watch out, bad guys, that 3 foot 6 inch pit bull of a kid is coming to take you down!

We all have the tendency to throw on a costume.  For some it's only at the black tie dinner parties where I don't want people to know I have no clue which of the 400 utensils sitting at my setting I'm supposed to use to eat the salad that has stuff on it I've never seen before, but I act like I've eaten this a dozen times before at all of the other formal events I'm accustomed to attending on the regular.  If I confess I'm clueless, the fancy people may not ask me back to another event.  If the escargot gets flung across the table, I'll be found out!  I have to keep the costume intact.  If it starts to slip, we're like the Professor in the Wizard of Oz, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!".  We don't want who we really are to be exposed when the curtain is pulled back.  

The problem with branding yourself, with branding your family, is that it's like when I first started going to church.  I looked around me and saw all of these people who were cleaned up and dressed up, the kids who sat there in silent fidgety obedience, the husband whose arm wrapped lovingly around his wife's shoulder in the pew, and who were so kind and polite, and when you asked them how their week was, all you heard was wonderful glowing things about what God was doing in their lives.  I thought I could never be like that.  I could never be a 'good Christian'.  I saw my struggles with so many things.  I saw the failures through the week.  Quite frankly at times it was discouraging.  I know many others have felt that was as well.

Have you figured it out yet??  Have you figure out yet that you're not the only one who dons a costume at will, at strategic times depending on where we are and who is in the audience?  Those people you're trying to impress have their own costumes and masks. They have their own persona they are presenting to the world. Those perfect Facebook and Instagram people aren't as flawless as they seem.  Their marriage, kids, finances, jobs, stuff, aren't as perfect as they appear.  

Watch people around you take selfies in random places or posing with family and friends.  That's where we expose ourselves just a little. That's where Toto starts tugging at the curtain and you see someone other that who is being presented when the picture gets posted.  You can see it in the smile.  People have perfected the social media smile.  We're ruining our kids with it.  The big cheesy smile is plastered on my face, and when the camera is off, the face goes back to somber.  My question is, which is the real person, the one who paints on the smile for the picture, or the one who walks away after the photo shoot?

The reality is we're not burning ourselves out trying to keep up with the Joneses, we're burning ourselves out trying to keep up with a false image, a bunch of costume wearers who in reality are just like us.  It's almost like a competition at a party trying to determine who has the best costume!  Just now I wondered if the suicide statistics rising have any connection with people feeling like they cannot measure up to the flawless and perfect images they see being presented in person and on social media (not to mention television and movies) around them every day.  Maybe it's time to drop the charade and start going for a little bit of humility and authenticity. 

I don't think everyone does this.  I don't think anyone is being malicious.  I don't think that just because you want to put your best foot forward that you have bad intentions.  I don't think we need to go around airing out our dirty laundry every day either.  Social media could get depressing pretty quickly if all we presented was the negative.  But maybe, just maybe we could start pulling back the curtain on our own and stop presenting a completely filtered picture of our lives.  The one thing everyone on this planet has in common is that we're all messed up.  The bible says the same when it says "For ALL have sinned (are flawed, have imperfections) and fallen short of the glory of God." (emphasis mine).

Perhaps the question shouldn't be, "What image do you want people to see?" but "Whose image do you want people to see?"  When God created us, Genesis records in chapter 1 verse 27, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them..."  We were created to be HIS image bearers, representatives of God in the paradise He created for us. The problem was that an enemy of God convinced the image bearers that God didn't know what He was doing and they could be their own image bearers and made it sound like a good idea to disobey God's one garden rule.  His rationale was that if they ate it, they could be like God.  Part of the lie of the enemy was that they could BECOME like God.  They already WERE as image bearers.  The enemy wanted them to be agents of  darkness to steal God's glory and take glory for themselves by creating fake images to present to the world,  rather than continuing to be agents of God to present His image to the world. Then they became conscious of self and covered their nakedness from one another and even hid from God.  From that point on they became costume wearers instead of image bearers.  Essentially they said, I'm vulnerable and I have to protect self, to help self, to hide self, and do what I can to feel better about my self.  Now life was all about self because God couldn't be trusted with my self.

The good news is that our image bearer status can be restored.  Jesus came to do just that. With the new birth, the bible says the old is gone and the new has come.  The old costume wearer is dead, and now it's Jesus living in me and me living in Him.  Life is no longer about self.  I have everything I need, perfect validation, every need taken care of, so self can go back in it's proper place, and Jesus can take His proper place. When people look at you now, people see Jesus. They also see the one who is struggling with the process of stripping off the costume and keeping it off (denying self daily), but increasingly they see the real Man behind the curtain.  A glimpse of love here, a hint of forgiveness there.  Moments of holiness and righteousness are revealed.   Wow!

For me, it's time to throw up my hands and say, I don't want people to see some counterfeit mask wearing, costume wearing guy who leads others to frustration and despair.  I want people to see Him more and more every day along with others who are depending on Him to show himself to the world through us to lead people to encouragement and hope. Not me, but Jesus in me.