Each week, let’s reflect upon Sunday’s teaching through further exploration…
“When No One Is Watching” (Dreams in the Dark Sermon Series)
Who do you perceive yourself to be? Who do you present yourself to be?
Impression management involves the methods/tactics we use to help create the impression we want to make. That impression is often situation-based. For example, when we interview for a job, we seek to dress, speak, and act in ways that reveal competence, confidence, and charisma. When we talk to a child who is disobeying, we seek to look and sound like someone of authority and wisdom.
We often have different personas depending on our environments – our work self, our home self, our vacation self, our church self, etc. It’s fascinating (and sometimes downright disturbing) to realize how different a person can be in one context versus another. Interpersonal communication studies this phenomenon based on two categories: the perceived self and the presenting self. The perceived self is who you know yourself to be in private, behind closed doors, when no one else is watching. The presenting self is who you portray in public – when others are around, when you’re not in your private space, even through social media.
If you sit back in honest self-examination, are these two selves similar… or are they vastly different?
Sunday’s sermon challenged this idea. Using the example of Joseph (in Genesis 39), Jonathan taught about integrity. His very first point was “Integrity is tested in private.” It was in the privacy of Potiphar’s home, when no other people were around except Potiphar’s wife, that Joseph had to choose whether he would succumb to or run from temptation. Here, the perceived self and the presenting self came face to face. Was Joseph the same man when no one was watching that he was when the eyes of Potiphar and all his household were on him? Was he truly a man of integrity?
Verse 12 of chapter 39 reveals that answer in this situation with Joseph and Potiphar’s wife: “She caught him by his cloak and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’ But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.” Joseph proved that the man he presented in public was the same man he was in private.
Is the same true for me? Is the same true for you?
I have a bold challenge for you this week…. bold because it requires something from you and also involves another person. Will you accept this challenge?
Ask a trusted friend, family member, or spouse if the person you are in public is consistent with who you are in private, if you are a person of integrity. Explore the answer with them and then make time for humble reflection. If there are areas of inconsistency and lack of integrity, confess those to God, submit those areas to Him, and ask Him to strengthen and mature your integrity.
I’ll wrap up this week’s reflection with words from the apostle James (James 1:2-8):
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.