My Mask

Have you ever tried to hide behind a wall you have created for protection? Have you ever worn a mask so someone else would not see what you are going through? On a day when my heart was broken, a friend asked if I was all right. I answered, “I’m fine.” I never considered that God might have sent my friend to help me at my point of need. I held my mask firmly in place. Perhaps I missed the very healing God wished to impart. Maybe you have also missed yours. I know that the Lord does not want us to expose our pain to just anyone. However, He wants us to be sensitive enough to the Holy Spirit to know when He has sent someone we can trust. He longs for us to know when we have the freedom to open up our hearts.

Perhaps the Holy Spirit wants us to open our hearts to someone who has been deeply hurt by something in the past or something that has bound his or her in the present. Do we hold the mask in place? Do we not share our own pain and experience because we are afraid of our own vulnerability? If we do, there is no freedom because the Holy Spirit is held out by our mask. Perhaps we have denied our own healing and healing for someone else.

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:13–18, NIV)

Do we mask our hearts and not allow the Holy Spirit freedom to transform us? He wants to heal us, but He can’t if we hide behind self-imposed walls of protection. Christ has the power to set us free from the “old covenant veil” we hold in place so others don’t see our vulnerability and pain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my mind and heart dull and hardened. I don’t want to wear a mask to hide joy that has faded because I don’t want to appear less than I have been. I want to be real and trust that the Lord who exposes my pain will also heal that which I have entrusted to Him.

Where the Holy Spirit is, I have the liberty, the freedom, the vulnerability, the faith, and the purpose to open my heart. In my giving, He will bring healing to those He has entrusted to me—and He will also bring healing to me.

Are you a living breathing letter of His love, or do you live an old covenant relationship that never allows the Holy Spirit a chance to set you free?  With your mask down, you have the potential to reflect His glory—to share without hesitation His very heart of forgiveness. Are you ready to live in the grace of His new covenant glory? There is nothing in your way, but your own will.

—From Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me

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