A lot of inspiration for this blog comes to me while I’m sitting in church. And it happened again this week. At my church yesterday we started a new sermon series about new beginnings, entitled “How to Begin Again.” As Pastor Guy was giving us a preview of next week’s sermon, He said, ‘In order to begin again, you have to come as you are.’ What he meant was, if you want a new start, you have to be honest about who you really are in your relationships with God and others. All of that is very true, but it brought me to the realization that all I have to do in relationships of all kinds is come as I am. With my immediate family members and closest friends, that’s pretty easy. Around others, it can be more difficult.
Let me expand on that. When there’s someone I want to make a good impression on I often feel the need to be “better” than I am. I pressure myself to be more confident, more gregarious, more humorous, more interesting. This pressure to perform ends up achieving the exact opposite result, making me insecure and shy, serious and dull. When I try to be the best version of me, I inevitably fail. But, when I simply come to each relationship as I am, that’s when people enjoy being around me and I enjoy being around people.
Thinking about all the people I know, I would hate it if any one of them felt like they couldn’t be themselves around me. I love the way every person has a unique contribution to make. To conversations. To relationships. To the world. As C.S. Lewis wrote after his friend Charles died, “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” Discovering the different facets of people—that’s one of the things that makes relationships of all kinds enjoyable. So, take it from me, just come as you are. The people in your life will thank you.