Journal

What is most real?

Posted on October 6th, 2005, in the evening

People talk a lot about "being real" before God. Being real is obviously better than being false before God, but I think it's important to reflect on what we mean when we use the phrase "being real" like that.

Specifically, what is it that is most deeply real about us? Do we imagine (and I think I tend to) that our feelings are at any given moment the most significantly real thing about us? That "being real" before God is therefore simply honesty about how we feel? (Or for that matter about what we believe, what we desire, or about anything else that goes on inside us.)

I heard the following quote today, which I've sourced to Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a C19th Scottish preacher:

A man is what he is on his knees before God, and nothing more.

If we use M'Cheyne's definiton of what is most deeply real about us then (for me at least) "being real" before God takes on quite a different meaning. (I suppose from that perspective we can't be anything but real before God, and in fact can only be truly real before him.)

I don't mean to imply that I don't think God is interested in how we feel. Completely the opposite, I believe he is passionately interested in everything about us, and I definitely do think it's a good thing to be honest in prayer about how we feel. I also don't mean to imply that I think the quote above is necessarily an exhaustive definition of what we are (although I do think it's a very good quote). What I'm aiming for is to be more reflective about how we define ourselves.

What is it that is most deeply real about us? And do we live and pray as if that were true?