Take Off Your Pants!

Have you ever had those dreams where you are in a public place and you are naked? Not that I expect you to answer this honestly. I have...many times. I'm not sure what that says about me, but I am revealing myself to you (not literally). People talk about how this is their worst nightmare. For sure it would be an extremely embarrassing moment. So, last night I had this dream and it was different than most. I was among a large group of people and was trying to change my clothes and people kept coming to meet me and introduce people to me. I remember feeling very anxious about new people getting to know me that well. But for whatever reason I was struggling to get my pants on and by the time I was done all the people I needed to meet were gone. I pulled something from this lesson...man the puns could be flying.

My thought is simply this; do we worry so much about covering that we miss the opportunity to get to know people? We are so concerned with making sure others don't see us as we really are that we miss the chance to really get to know them. I think people genuinely want transparency. It removes inhibitions that normally cover us and keep us from really being known. We all have stuff to hide. We all want to keep our dirty little secrets to ourselves. We fear greatly the thought of someone have access to our junk. We are deathly afraid of someone seeing our failures and faults. We are afraid of what they might think about us. I say we start a revolution...let us remove our pants!

Yeah, yeah...I know. That is a little overboard. But the idea is very radical. Let us be willing to be stripped of all that covers us and be known completely. Like I said, I think people really want to experience transparency. There is freedom in someone knowing your junk. You no longer have to expend the energy to hold up the facade. You no longer have to keep up the image. Who knows? You might even reach to the heart of someone else and their issues. And it is contagious. When you are brave enough to strip before others they are less inclined to cover. Heck, we could start our own nudist colony...sort of.

You know this is an age old problem. It started when Adam and Eve covered themselves before God; and we have been covering ever since. But it is not what God desires. He wants us to remove the fig leaf and be real before the world. I am not suggesting that you vomit your junk before the world on national television. But among people you would call friends you ought to be known. And as you desire to expand your relationships you should be willing to uncover. How many times have you thought you knew someone only to find out that you didn't know all you should? You find yourself saying, "really? I didn't know that".

I think I have much more to say about this, but for now I will let you chew on that...a revolution that requires its adherents to remove their pants!