Explanation of Blog Title

Ok so here is my first offering. This is Landon by the way. Sorry, but this is going to be long and not very funny.

You might have noticed on this blog some talk of “real” life. The title of the blog is Authentic Life. Many might be wondering what that is supposed to mean. I can remember hearing people talk about being real and authentic and feeling very suspicious of them. I am generally not a trusting person. So, when you tell me you are being real I take that to mean if I don’t act like you then I am being fake. I really don’t want to be fake. However, I find that it is a lot harder to be “real” than one might think. Bethany and I have come to discover that though we never intended to be fake we were, in fact, not truly being real with each other and God. Everyone I know has an innate tendency to protect themselves. We don’t like pain whether emotional or physical. We all want this life to go well. Therefore, we often find ourselves presenting a false representation of ourselves so that people will accept us. Please spare me the response, “I don’t care if you accept me or not.” This really isn’t the place to carry on a discussion about your denial issues.

Perhaps you are like me and have believed that if you just do this life right you will receive God’s blessings. Larry Crabb is an awesome writer and he says, With the devil, the flesh within us says, ‘Real life is the enjoyment of blessings in this world, which God (or fate) gives to those who get it right.’ With Christ, the Spirit within us says, “Real life consists in dependence on God, clinging to Him when everything goes wrong, tramping down despair with the weight of the Cross, and waiting on the Spirit to draw us near into the Father’s heart, doing all that we can do to create space for the Spirit to work.” Real life for us means not hiding our junk from God and each other. God is big enough to handle my stuff. In fact, He has promised to love me anyway. Bethany knows my junk and she also chooses to love me anyway. I also have a close circle of men around me who have the freedom to challenge me on anything they see that doesn’t resemble Christ. That is what we mean by real life. We do not have it all together. We struggle like everybody else. Now of course we probably won’t be posting our junk on this blog, but we want to be faithful to present an accurate picture of our lives. Presently, things are going quite well. Hence, posts about fun stuff like trips to IHOP.

Finally, a closing thought for you to consider. 2 Cor. 12 is extremely special to me. Go get your Bible and check it out. If you aren’t able to boast about your weakness then I wonder what it would take for that to happen. Maybe you just need to share your weakness with someone else? What would it take for you to get to a place where the power of Christ could rest on you? I believe the first step is getting real with God and others.