Shine: Stepping Into The Role You Were Made ForSample

Allison Allen: Shine, Stepping into the Role You Were Made For Devotional Day 4

What Character Are You Playing?

Scripture: Ephesians 1:4

I sometimes hear Jesus whispering the same thing he first said to me when I was all of nineteen years of age, sporting a deeply unnecessary spiral-rod perm: “There is so much more for you, beloved, than acting your way through life. Feel free to drop the brave act anytime.” 

In short, Jesus was encouraging me to save the playacting for the theater. “How about leaving it there?” he seemed to be asking.

Jesus holds out this wild and genuine offer to me today as well. In some ways the battle for authentic, Jesus-soaked realness is just as fraught as it was when I was a green-as-they-come Brat Pack wannabe, hoping for a career in the theater. 

But no matter how much I tried to “woman up” in those days, I felt like a fraud. No matter how much I spackled on my best “brave act,” I was scared to death, and acting to the contrary off the stage was exhausting me. In many ways I had become a better actor off the stage than I ever had been on. 

And Jesus wanted to do something about that. He wanted me to step onto his stage, where I could be as real as God created me to be.

Maybe your character is the “unflappable mom” or the “wisdom woman” or the “perfect ministry leader.” When we recognize the false character roles we play—the ones that indenture us, the ones that drain us of vitality—then we can begin to let them go. 

We learn well—sometimes starting in childhood—how to be the kind of person who always seems to be included or respected. So we try her “type” on. And when it works, when we get those first heady hits of affirmation, we keep putting “her” on, not realizing that we’ve adopted a character in an effort to belong. 

Yet this “play-acting” is unnecessary in the body of Christ. In Christ, we’ve already been chosen. We are already the beloved. We don’t have to strive for something that is already ours. 

When we allow Jesus to reassure our internal character actor that we belong, we discover an exhilarating freedom. A freedom that invites us onto life’s real stage, playing the part God calls us to play.

In what area of your life do you feel the most pressure to keep up a certain appearance?