Private and Public lives

Whitney Houston’s sudden death had the tabloids going wild.

Details of first-hand account, breaking-news new revelation and untold secrets dominate the headlines – if only you could buy it.

The media was relentless in exposing all private details of the star. The personal life of the star did not match the glamorous, successful life she portrayed on screen.

But the world is not surprised.

The world loves Hollywood but the world also knows Hollywood.

The world understands that the Hollywood stars’ public images are quite different from their lives off-stage.

The world is not naïve. We love the glamor, success, beauty and near-perfection depicted by our actors and actresses but we also know they are too good to be true.

Transfer that low expectation to our church, to ourselves and we are in for a disaster.

The Christian life is not about portraying or keeping up an image. It is about life. It is about integrity. It is about authenticity.

The apostles, the Christians before us will flip in their graves if we adopt that kind of an attitude in our own lives.

There is no room for playacting in our Christian walk. Our private lives must be as authentic and real as our public lives. That does not mean perfection but it does mean striving to be perfect. It means a struggling to live up to what God wants us to be.

It means a lifelong pursuit to be the same person whether people are watching or not, and by God’s grace, so to be.