The Impostor

Sometimes I have conversations with myself in my head. Weird? Perhaps. But hopefully slightly less weird than having them aloud. In public.

Anyway, I had one of those conversations recently. I was telling myself that I feel like such a hypocrite sometimes. I can’t understand how I can have the heartfelt conversations I have about God, and truly believe the things I say I believe, and yet simultaneously struggle with some of the things I struggle with. I feel like the darker side is the real me, and the faithful side is an impostor and a liar. And one of these days, everyone is going to realize it and I’ll be exposed for the hypocrite I am.

And then I answered my own complaint in a way I had never considered before.

“The side of you that you don’t like, that you’re ashamed of, that struggles with temptation and sin– that is the part of you that is an impostor. That part is the liar. The faithful part– that part is the authentic you.”

How can that possibly be true? I wondered. And another answer came. “The old has gone. The new has come. You have been made new; you have been redeemed.”

My soul is clean. I have been made new. Yes, there is a sinful part of me, a dark side. But it is not the authentic me; it is not who I was created to be. It is the impostor and liar, and it is not what I should ever allow to control me. I should not let it stop me from sharing my faith and worshiping God.
I read a quote recently that went along beautifully with these thoughts of mine, so I just want to close with it:

As a former seminary professor of mine once reflected, “Anyone who articulates the gospel articulates it as a hypocrite, someone who is trying to live it out but failing.” Except for Christ.