Is What You See What You Get?

This Yankee didn’t grow up listening to country music. But, after 25 years (which accounts for 58% of my life, by the way) of living in the south in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas, I am growing in my love and appreciation of country music. I am especially partial to Brad Paisley. I love his music and sometimes the lyrics are even better.

One of my favorite Paisley songs is Online. Feast your eyes on a few of these lyrics:

I work down at the Pizza Pit, and I drive an old Hyundai.

I still live with my mom and dad, I’m 5’3” and overweight.

I’m a Sci-Fi fanatic, Mild asthmatic, Never been to 2nd base

But there's a whole ‘nother me, That you need to see. Go check out MySpace

'cause online I'm out in Hollywood, I'm 6'5 and I look d*mn good

I drive a Maserati, I'm a black belt in Karate, And I love a good glass of wine

The video is even funnier, featuring Jason Alexander, aka George Kostanza, as the real version and Brad Paisley as his online persona.

Part of the reason why this song is so popular is because it’s true for just about every one of us. We either create a false online persona through social media, or we just let people in to the good parts of our life and hide or minimize the bad. This is why we love to show pictures of vacations and meals out, and humblebrag about our accomplishments. We love to show off our kids when they win the swim meet and hit a home run, but decline to show pictures from when they fail a test or strike out with the winning run on third base.

This is part of human nature. It started in Genesis 3 in the fall and continues today for each of us. In the garden after the fall, the man and women hid from God, covered themselves up and blamed others. We do the same thing, both online and in real life. We let others see what we want them to see, but hide, cover ourselves up and blame others for our faults.

I struggle in a lot of areas of life, many of which I’m open about on this blog, but this is one area where I celebrate some significant growth over the years. I keep it real on here, but I’m probably even worse than I portray and worse than I even realize. More and more I want to close the gap between the online me and the real me. On the bottom of the screen in the writing software I use is the acronym “WYSIWYG.” What You See Is What You Get. More and more I want "what you see" in me to be "what you get": the real me.

I’ve heard integrity defined as who you are when no one is looking. I’m trying to reduce the gap between who I am when no one sees me and when everyone sees me.

The Truth Before WYSIWYG

The last piece of this is that there never is really a time when no one sees us. We are seen 100% of the time by the God of the universe. He knows everything about each of us. He knows our thoughts, our actions and everything we say. And He knows it all from the past, the present and the future. As much as you and I think we can hide from Him, He knows and see all.

• The scary part of this is that we can’t get away with anything. When we think we get away with something because no one human sees us, God still knows all.

• The embarrassing part of this is that God knows all. I’m not proud of some things I do in front of others and in private.

• The humbling part of this is that we think we can get away with things. Our pride thinks we can get away with it.

• The shocking part of this is that He even knows our thoughts. The prideful thoughts that run in our heads. The racist things we think. The lustful images that won’t go away and the ones we let linger.

The BEAUTIFUL part of this is that He still chooses to love you in spite of the fact that He knows and sees all. He still chose to send His one and only, perfect Son to die on our behalf for the forgiveness of our sins. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Your Turn:

1. Can you say to others, WYSIWYG? Is your online persona the same as the real you?

2. Do you think that because no one human sees you that you can get away with something?

3. What are you willing to do to help close the gap between the real you and the fake you?