My wife and I recently started hosting our small group. What we have found is that there is more emphasis on keeping your house clean when you know company will be over every week. My daughter was complaining about helping when I said, “You’re the one who’s been begging me to have friends over and now you’re complaining that I do. There’s no pleasing you, is there?” She came back with “I didn’t mean these kind of friends.” We went back and forth for a few minutes and eventually got to her meaning friends that you don’t have to clean up for. Or another way our pastor put it this weekend, friends with ‘refrigerator rights.’
I don’t know if you’re like us, frantically cleaning up your house before someone comes over. Throwing that mound of dirty clothes into the dryer to hide it. Cramming all those medical bills, school papers, and unopened coupon envelopes, with every franchised home improvement imaginable to man, into a spare drawer. Side note: does anyone still use those coupons? I even went as far as mulching half the flower bed because I was so embarrassed by the bare spots in it! Ha. I still have not gone back to Home Depot to get the rest of the mulch! Where am I going with this, you might be asking yourself? Well, I guess it comes down to why do we have different standards when a friend comes over?
I have stood firm with the belief that it’s out of respect that you clean up before company arrives. I grew up that way and carried the tradition on to this point. However, I have noticed over the years that when we’d go to family functions at my parents' house, there has always been this underlying guarded feeling. Maybe it’s because my mom keeps everything in showroom floor condition. The place is immaculate and the activities are planned out with precision. However, I’ve always had a feeling that you cannot relax in an environment where everything is too perfect. It’s an odd contradiction, I know.
I feel like we compartmentalize our lives so much so that we never really feel at peace. We have college friends, church friends, work friends, but never shall they meet. We stuff certain behaviors in a random drawer when we’re around church friends. Vacuum up our relationship struggles before walking into work. Relive the glory days with our college buddies, but never let them in on how your life has changed in the past 20 years. We are in a perpetual cycle of wearing different masks to either hide parts of our lives or to be accepted by different people.
What would life look like if we had integrity? Integrity is the quality of being honest, having strong moral principles, and adhering to ethical standards consistently, even when it may be difficult or inconvenient to do so. It involves being truthful and trustworthy in all aspects of life, maintaining consistency between one's beliefs, words, and actions, and demonstrating reliability and sincerity in interactions with others. Integrity often involves a commitment to doing what is right, even when faced with challenges or temptations to compromise one's values.
Maybe there’s a healthy balance between increasing your personal standards while lowering your walls of veiling who you truly are. There are obviously times where it’s inappropriate to bring your personal drama into the workplace, but hopefully you get the point. What would it be like to go back to visiting friends more often? Stopping in for 30 minutes to see how they’re doing? They wouldn’t be embarrassed about the mess and we wouldn’t be judging them either. Humans were designed for community. Not an online community either! God designed us to spend time with each other. We get our energy from being around one another. You can’t hug a friend over the phone or hold a baby so your friend can use the bathroom for the first time all week, in peace. A quick stop by a friend’s house for a cup of coffee could turn into a meaningful conversation that leaves you both feeling uplifted and connected.
In the end, perhaps the lesson here is about embracing authenticity and cultivating genuine connections. As we frantically tidy up our homes and hide away parts of ourselves when friends come over, we inadvertently reinforce the idea that perfection is a prerequisite for acceptance. But what if we dared to break down those barriers? What if we allowed our friends to see the messy, imperfect parts of our lives, knowing that true friendship transcends the need for pristine appearances?
Integrity, as I've come to realize, is not just about being honest and morally upright; it's also about embracing our whole selves and showing up authentically in every aspect of our lives. It's about lowering the walls and allowing others to see us as we truly are, flaws and all.
So, as we navigate our social circles and relationships, let's strive for that delicate balance between personal standards and genuine connection. Let's not be afraid to visit friends unannounced, to share our joys and struggles openly, and to embrace the messiness of life together. After all, as human beings, we were designed for community, for real-life interactions that nourish our souls in ways that virtual connections simply can't replicate.
Let's put down our masks, open our doors, and invite our friends in—mess and all. Because in the end, it's those genuine moments of connection that truly enrich our lives and remind us of the beauty of being human.
Until next time, God bless…