Along with a few women I work with, I recently started going through Priscilla Shirer’s study, Discerning the Voice of God. In the very first session she said something that has really stuck with me. She was telling the story of Naaman from 2 Kings 5. He was the commander of the army, but he had leprosy. Most of the times we hear of leprosy throughout the Bible we read of people living in seclusion, excluded from society, and considered unclean. However, Naaman was none of those things. He was a fully functional leper. The disease had not fully ravaged his body.

Since then, I have thought about how many of us are functional lepers. Maybe we are able to keep our lesions covered by putting a good face forward or not letting down our guard too much. Perhaps most people don’t even know that we are covered in leprosy under our nice clothes. Underneath all the covering though, is a disease that is destined to take us down. Maybe it is a physical disease, but more likely it is something spiritual or emotional. Maybe we put on a good front, but inside we have been thinking about leaving our spouse. Or maybe our teenager is running around with a bad crowd, and we have no idea how to stop it. Possibly we are living what appears to be an ideal life from the outside, dream home, nice cars, latest technology, but behind closed doors we are in debt over our head and are one missed payment away from repossession on our precious toys. You never know what is going on behind the scenes in someone’s life.

One of the worst things we can do as Christians is to live hiding behind a facade. Not only is it an awful witness to others, but internally it is so damaging to our relationship with God. If we can’t be true to who we are, we will never move to the next level in our faith. So many people go to church every single week and put their best foot forward on Sunday morning, but live like hell during the rest of week. Spiritually they are dead inside. Jesus called people like that “whitewashed tombs”.  The religious people of His day who went to the the temple whenever the doors were open, were often the same people that He avoided.

On the other end of the spectrum are people who know and admit their faults. These are people who have a tremendous ministry to others because they aren’t afraid to be real about who they are. Some of the most influential Christians for me personally are not the ones who pretend to be perfect. Instead, I am more drawn to people who can have real conversations about their struggles. They are people who you feel safe letting down your own guard.  I pray that I am that kind of person to others. I don’t ever want people to see someone fake when they look at my life. Although, I know I am far from the perfect witness of my faith, I pray that others are drawn to God, not pushed away.

So, rather than simply settling on being a functional leper, let’s all do what Naaman finally did. Let’s seek out true healing from God. Let Him heal those spots of our lives that we try to cover. We will be much more effective in our lives if we don’t have to hide parts of our lives from others.