Is it time to take off your 'mask?'

This past weekend (Oct. 29-30), I had the pleasure of attending an incredible men's retreat weekend with my church called "Unmasked." It had to do with how often people, especially guys, tend to hide behind a type of mask in their lives. These types of masks could be a multitude of things to include past hurt, guilt, divorce, childhood pain, eating disorder, fatherlessness, alcoholism, pride and any other thing we want to hide behind.

Just think about it - how often are we personally willing to 'step outside the box' and extend ourselves where we are uncomfortable? This is a mask in itself. Our comfort zone is really a mask where we think we have this control of life and everything feels fine. Ultimately it is the mask that suffocates us and makes us feel horrible and traps us by the evil one to think we have control in our lives.

I personally didn't want to attend this retreat. I actually 'loathed' going. However, my great friend who is also my amazing accountability partner challenged me to attend with him. I even had other plans to go do something else but chose otherwise since the pieces fell together for me to attend the retreat. The one key thing my friend had to share with me was that he felt that God was going to show up and meet me here during the retreat. He felt personally that God was going to work in me and share something with me over the next two days.

He was right. No matter how horrible it was, my friend was correct. God met me.....with bells on. Jesus saw behind my masks over the next two days. He came to me in my hurt, pain and suffering and drew those things out of me in the things I experienced with other guys. Jesus showed me in one way that all men struggle with similar issues and also their own separate insecurities which help 'mask' their identities.

Hearing other men talk about how they feel and so on made me realize a lot of these issues come from our worldly views today. Men are told they have to be strong, non-emotional, fierce creatures but not too strong and not too dirty because that's not the image of a 'nice guy' they want to see. Really.....I have to ask......what do people want to see in a man? No wonder we wear so many layers of masks to hide. We have been truly told so many things that contradict one another that we see it's easier not to show anything at all but this half-cocked person who doesn't even know who he is himself.

Therefore, as I said before, Jesus met me here. Right here. All of my masks I had been wearing, and He peeled them back to see His son. Wow..........I wanted to hide. Instead, I chose to write Jesus a real letter. No nonsense - the real deal of what was on my heart and where I needed to come to Him in my healing. It was incredible. I was able to see what masks I had been wearing a long time and the new ones I had put on in my life. The letter was very easy to ask for Jesus to help me peel them off and be real in my life. Then came the most humbling, horrible, painful and bone crushing thing I've done as a man since choosing Jesus as my Savior.......

I volunteered to read my letter to Jesus Christ - in front of the whole room of guys who attended the retreat. Immediately it was easy to volunteer since that's something built inside of me since I was young - to be willing to do about anything. As soon as I made my way up to the front with the microphone, it was ON. I started to tremble as I reviewed my letter and thought to myself, "my God, these guys are going to see the 'real' me." The shaking became even worse as they quieted and I started to read the letter to Jesus and poured out my faults, problems and worst nightmares in my life. I began to convulse into weeping and trembling to the point where I had to pause multiple times knowing my heart was known and my masks were being peeled off. Once I had finished, my face was red and heart was pounding from the humiliating feeling I felt from reading my letter to my Jesus. However, I looked up to see a room of fellow men standing, clapping and coming around a fellow broken man of Christ who had Jesus come to him that weekend.

It's a daily choice......no actually it is an hourly choice for me if not even more. Do we continue each day playing the routine conversation of "how are you; oh I'm fine" and so forth.....or do we get real with one another and stop faking it behind masks? This won't be easy and already has been a fight since God met me in the moment 4 days ago. The best part is that I have championed a group of men to help me stay accountable with the fight and I am in their fight with them against putting the mask back on. However, I'm tired of the man I think the world needs me to be and I want to become the man Jesus sees in me. I know that Jesus loves me for who I am now and who He plans on me to become.