Who are you, really?

This afternoon saw me going with a few friends to see some local acts play at the Northcote Social Club, as part of a single launch for a friend's band. The artists were all wonderful and it was a great afternoon, the first time that I've been back to one of my favourite northern haunts since returning to Australia a year ago.

The second act, a seven-piece country sensation, were particularly striking, all in their chequered shirts, skinny legs and boots, singing songs about God, guns and midnight trains. There was nothing original about them but what they did they did marvellously. But, as one of the friends I went with pointed out, there's something a little insincere about guys who live in Northcote wearing boots that have never seen the countryside singing about experiences they've never had and never will. And I wonder how many of them actually believed in God. When they sang about Him, it had the ring to it of a stylistic trope rather than a profession of faith. It was simply in the genre to sing about Him.

It drew to my attention, I suppose, how often we simply fit into playing parts in our lives - parts that we pull off quite effectively but parts nonetheless. We may indeed look the real thing quite well, until we encounter someone who knows the real thing well enough to show to us that we sure aren't it.

Searching our own hearts, finding what is true in us and what is false, is a mightily difficult job. I for one can't do it. I'm happy enough to laugh at others being faux-country, for instance, because I feel that, in my heart, I'm the real thing. After all, I've spotted a fake, haven't I? Therefore I can't be fake myself, surely.

Oh, how wrong we are.

The truth is, the only one who can search our hearts properly is God, and it's a pretty scary prospect to think of bringing our hearts before Him. Anyone who thinks that praying is simply an act of wish-fulfilment and double think doesn't know the human heart. Coming to God, truly coming to Him, is often the last thing that our hearts desire. It takes a lot of humility, and humility just ain't something we feel like acquiring.

It's easy to play the part of being a Christian, to do all the outwardly Christian things, but open-hearted, repentant, ongoing prayer is quite another thing. I don't think you can fake something like that. It cuts to the heart of human duplicity.