Honesty & Authenticity

Honesty and authenticity are inextricably connected.

You cannot live authentically without living honestly. A person who is completely honest with themselves and others is someone who lives authentically. By contrast, a person who fails to be honest with themselves and others will appear disingenuous. The two are linked.

The fact that so many of us have a hard time being honest would seem to indicate that most of our relationships are fairly superficial and inauthentic—and not just in our relationships with other human beings, but perhaps more importantly, in our relationship with God and ourselves. Few of us are completely honest with ourselves, and therefore, few us are truly living authentically. And this is the case for most of us before we even attempt to interact with other human beings. We project onto others how we want to be perceived. But the problem is that we start to believe in those projections ourselves. And, before we know it, even our attempts to be authentic are undermined by the fact that who we think we are is based on a disingenuous foundation. We don’t know who we really are.

So how do we move toward authentic living?

The road to self-discovery has little to with hours of introspective meditation. While introspective meditation will certainly be required, and perhaps quite a bit of it, the first step toward self-discovery is moving toward God. Only as we discover who God is will we understand who we are. Just as honesty and authenticity are inextricably connected, so also are knowing self and knowing God. The key to understanding yourself is not looking at yourself, but rather, looking to God. Only by looking to God will you begin to see yourself how God sees you. And God sees you as you actually are. Self-discovery has to do with seeing yourself as God sees you first and foremost. Knowing how God sees you then informs how you understand yourself and live life out. Doing this, of course, will require an inside look. Only as we get honest about what is preventing us from living life as God intended will we be able to live authentically. And, as I suggested in my last post, God’s unchanging love for us provides us with a safe context to acknowledge every part of ourselves—including those nasty parts that are relationally toxic.

Discovering who you are through a relationship with God provides the foundation for authentic living with other people. As I increasingly come to see myself as God sees me, several things begin to take shape. Not only do I start to internalize the fact that God loves me unconditionally exactly as I am, but I also begin to consistently avoid the temptation to hide who I am from God or project onto him something that I am not. And the same goes for other people. Just as God’s unconditional love for me gives me the courage to be honest with myself in relationship to him, so also it gives me confidence to be authentic in my dealings with other people. Staying anchored to God’s love for me and knowing who he says I am empowers me to stop hiding from others and be truly genuine.

The biggest reward for authentic living is that it leads to authentic love. Projecting onto others how I want to be perceived does not allow genuine love to develop. For living a life of projections only allows people to love that which I project—not who I really am. Most of us know this intuitively. People, for example, who achieve great things in life can still feel empty inside. They sense that people love them for their achievement, not for who they really are. Stopping the projections and choosing to live authentically provides opportunity for others to truly love us. And the more we move toward authenticity the more we invite others to move in the same direction.