The Same Person In Every Room

I was sitting in a meeting this week when a thought randomly crossed my mind about how odd it would be if I had come in wearing the clothes I had on earlier that same day, when I went to swim laps at the pool. My goggles and togs didn’t raise any eyebrows at the pool, but they would have at the meeting. And if I had shown up at the pool with my meeting clothes on, that would have drawn a bit of attention, as well. 

Clearly, there are appropriate things to wear at appropriate times. When I get this wrong and realise that I’m overdressed or underdressed or somehow looking out of place, I’m embarrassed (though I’ve never worn swim togs to a meeting). This is true of clothes, but it can also apply to the demeanour I put on in different settings. In a formal meeting, I try hard to remember to be formal in my manners and speech. I don’t shout in a setting like that. But I do shout at the basketball court, and I’m even louder on a roller-coaster. I happily make silly faces for small children, but I don’t make any faces like that for airport security officers. Clearly, there are appropriate ways to behave at appropriate times. When I get this wrong and realise that I’ve acted or spoken in ways that do not fit the circumstance I’m in, I’m embarrassed. 

I change clothes to fit different settings, and I adjust my behaviour to fit different circumstances. This is all as it should be. Yet all of this changing can conceal a hidden danger—it can tempt me to change more than I should, adjusting not only my clothes and my demeanour, but the person I am underneath them. It can tempt me to adjust my standards of right and wrong according to the consensus of the people around me, instead of sticking to what I know to be true. And it can tempt me to shift those standards all over again whenever I move to a different room, with different people, who have different priorities. I can be tempted to change my values, and adjust my character, according to what will bring me the most advantage in the moment. I can be tempted to betray the trust of people who aren’t in the room in order to win the approval of people who are. I can be tempted to hide aspects of who I am and what I believe, or pretend to be things that I am not. When I give in to this temptation, I begin to split myself and my life into different compartments for the benefit of different groups of people in different settings. In a quest to fit in with everyone else, I lose the ability to fit in to my own skin—too fragmented to even know who I really am apart from the context I happen to be in at the moment. No thank you.

I want to be the same person in every room. I want to be the same person, at the core of me, whether I’m dressed up in a suit or a tracksuit. I want to be the same person with children and adults. The same person when I’m with powerful and influential people as I am with weak, heartbroken, and desperate people. Yes, my clothes will change, and my demeanour will change to suit the circumstances, but underneath all of that I want to maintain the same character and the same integrity wherever I am. I want to act on the same principles and priorities no matter how the people around me react or respond—and I want to still hold on to those same principles when no one is watching at all. I want to live my life in every setting on the solid foundation of real truth, not the shifting ground of situational expediency. 

I already know who I am. I am the creation of God himself. I have been rebellious and sinful, absolutely, but I have been forgiven and adopted into God’s own family through Jesus Christ. Whatever I’m wearing, wherever I am, this is my identity. Whatever I’m wearing, whoever I’m with, I want to live this identity out faithfully in every word and every action.

I want to be the same person in every room.