Ben Jack takes a humorous look at honesty

Ben Jack

A few years back I was co-hosting an after hours venue at Soul Survivor. My friend Tom and I decided it would be fun to film some hidden camera skits, playing various pranks around the site and capturing peoples' reactions on film, which we would then show in the venue each night.

As the days went by, the ideas Tom and I came up with became more and more outlandish, including one unfortunate incident involving skateboard theft, a speeding van and some vigilante youths, which almost ended very badly. If I described to you what actually happened it wouldn't be half as much fun, so I'll leave your imagination to conjure up all sorts of anarchy.

Speaking of skateboards, for one of the pranks I walked over to a couple of lads who were skateboarding and asked if I could have a go on one of their boards. Being nice Christian lads, they obliged and let me have a go. The plan was for me to skate down the site a little before deliberately wiping out in overly dramatic fashion and then lying still on the ground, (which, believe me, took some fabulous acting and stunt work). We would film from afar the reactions of the lads and any other people around at that moment. While we were planning this it seemed like a good idea. When we carried it out for real, however, I guess I must have been a little too convincing.

After executing the greatest fake skateboard crash in history, I lay on the ground wondering to myself how long I should wait before I would get up. But, in what seemed like only a couple of seconds, I was surrounded by concerned festival-goers. Before I could admit the hoax, I could already hear people praying for me! Caught in a dilemma, and making a split-second decision, I decided that I would act along for a few minutes, eventually sit up gingerly and then, thanking them for their help, walk off. The only problem was, when I tried to sit up a man who had kindly taken it upon himself to be my first aider wouldn't let me in case I had broken something! It was at this point that I heard someone utter the words that confirmed, like in a bad undercover cop movie, I was in too deep.

"We've called for the on-site ambulance".

At this point, any person of strong character would have instantly jumped up, confessed all and asked them to cancel the ambulance. It was probably around the time I was being wheeled into the ambulance in a wheelchair that I realised my strength of character was going to need some work.

Arriving at the on-site medical facility, the staff were all so lovely to me I just couldn't bring myself to confess the truth - that I was absolutely fine and this whole thing was a silly prank gone too far. I was eventually discharged about 45 minutes later with 'soft tissue damage', but not before being encouraged to take care and informed that the medical staff met every morning and prayed specifically for the skateboarders on site! Any person of strong character would have... well, you get the idea.

There were two reasons why I didn't confess that day. First of all, I was worried about what people would think; that they would be angry with me for suckering them in and that it would reflect badly on me. Secondly, the further in I got and the more invested into the scenario people became, the more I felt that to confess would reveal that they had wasted their time and effort. At least this way they could all feel good about their contribution, never knowing I hadn't needed their help at all. So it wasn't selfish at all, I was doing it for their benefit. Right?

Sometimes I think faith and our relationship with God can become like that. Have you ever pretended to someone else that your relationship with God is 'better' or 'stronger' than it actually is? That you pray and read your Bible more than you really do? Have you ever been worried that to confess struggles, or the reality of where you are in your walk might disappoint someone? I'm sure at some stage we have all been less than truthful about our journey, but the question is, for who's benefit are we doing this? Who are we really fooling?

Working in 'Christian ministry', one of my biggest challenges is not to become a 'professional' Christian. That is, someone who looks in great spiritual shape from the outside whilst speaking at an event somewhere, but privately their life and walk with Christ look very different. Truth is, this is a challenge for us all. Whether we share faith from a stage somewhere, or share faith to those immediately around us in the day to day, God is looking for us to be real.

You can't fool God. He knows everything! We know this and yet we can be found trying to convince ourselves, others and, yes, even God, that our walk is something different than it actually is. Pride, insecurity, and selfishness are all motivations behind this kind of false living. But God is desperate for us to move away from such destructive characteristics and embrace the character of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives.

There is no value to a fake, exaggerated or romanticised walk with Christ! When we put more effort into the appearance of our faith than the reality of it, we are saying that we matter more than God; that what people think of us matters more than what God does. This is where we come back to the strength of character issue that I was struggling with during the skateboarding incident. When we ground ourselves truthfully in Christ, the Holy Spirit can transform our character to be more like his. A Christ-like character will always prioritise real relationship, even when that means admitting weakness, struggle and even failures. In fact, in Romans 5, Paul tells us to rejoice in our struggles as they help us develop endurance which in turn develops... yep, you guessed it, character!

God doesn't want our faith to be professional, he wants it to be personal. For deeply personal relationships to be successful they must bring with them vulnerability, honesty, humility and trust. Sometimes when we model those things with other people we can get hurt, which is why they can be so scary! Our starting point with faith, though, is not other people, but God. He will never exploit your vulnerability, abuse your humility, love you less because of your honesty. And he will never betray your trust.

I don't know what my journey in this life is going to look like, how my faith will develop over the months and years, or how my relationships with those around me will impact me for better or worse. But I do know that God is calling me to get real with him today; to allow his Holy Spirit to transform my character and change my heart; to let that be the start of everything in my life that is real. He is calling us all. How will you respond?