Every week I visit some inmates in prison. When I am around them, I feel like I am around good friends. The atmosphere is contagious. You can feel the freedom and authenticity in the room.
When I visited last week, I saw their mugshots. In that image was a portal into their past. In their faces, you could see the rage, pain, confusion, sadness, hopelessness, etc. They look so different today. They look different because they are different. They are loving, kind, and respectful.
Can I be honest? I feel more freedom in that prison than I feel outside of it. Why is that?
Freedom Isn’t Always About Physical Space
Why is this? How can a man living behind bars have a sense of freedom, while people living in complete freedom be so bound?
A friend described someone to me last week. He said, “My friend has everything. He owns a business. He has great hobbies and lots of toys. He looks impressive outwardly, but he is in a really dark place and it’s all going to fall apart.”
My friend continued to describe the businessman by saying he has “Church Face”.
Church Face is the ability to cover up and pretend. Church Face is a mask that can be worn in order to make people think well of us. We can all relate to this. If we are honest with ourselves, we can recognize those moments when we find something to mask the reality of who we are.
In desperation, maybe because of our pride, we at least want to hide our mess. We put drywall over the prison bars and hang impressive pictures on the wall. From a distance, people see a pretty wall, but it’s just decor.
This Church Face creates a wall between us and others. People can’t get close… unless they agree to live inside of the prison with us.
The inmates in the prison have one advantage over us. They have been exposed. They have been stripped of reputation. While the rest of us hide our dirty laundry, their dirty laundry was put out for the world to see. As long as we hide our mess, we are chained to it.
I don’t recommend you expose your mess to the world. Some people will judge you for a lifetime. But your mess must be exposed.If you feel trapped in a life where you have to wear a Church Face, I recommend a book I wrote called “One Step to Freedom”. This will take you on a pathway to freedom.