i wanna be a real boy

I remember when I was a little boy, I loved the story of Pinocchio.

The story goes something like this:
Geppetto, a gentle and kind woodcarver, builds a marionette to be his substitute son and a benevolent fairy brings the toy to life. The puppet, named Pinnochio, is still not yet a real human boy but must earn the right to be one by exemplifying truthfulness, bravery, and selflessness.

And every-time the boy puppet lies, his nose grows.

I wonder what it would be like if everytime we messed up or sinned against God or someone, something happened on the outside of us; something happened externally to signify our internal struggle. something we couldn't help . . . like our nose growing. I wonder what it would be like if our bodies bore the repercussions of our mistakes so that everyone knew what we had done (sort of like the "Scarlett Letter").

What if everytime you thought a lustful thought
about somone who has not your spouse,
a giant "A" for adultery would start to appear on your forehead?

It is our human nature to fear exposure.
we fear people finding out about the things
we don't like about ourselves. the thought of
public humiliation terrifies us. we hate being open and vulnerable.

we fear showing people that we are a wooden puppet, longing to be a real person.
there is a desire deep within all of us that resonates with the words of Pinocchio: "I wanna be a real boy".

we even try to "fix" these problems on our own too.

we are so scared to show anyone the ugliness within us that we try to heal ourselves . . . by ourselves.
instead of admitting that we are broken, fake, and longing to be real . . . we resign ourselves to living a double life. We have one hand in the light while the other is in the dark, dealing with some secret sin.

our sins force us into a house of isolation and loneliness that we build with our own hands.
and there we dwell . . living lives of secrecy and always afraid that someone will discover what we really are like.
our relationships stay on the surface . . . we shy away from intimacy out of fear that someone will
see the reality of who we are and be disgusted by what they see.

so we live like wooden toys . . . fake poppets.
I don't know about you, but I wanna be a real boy.

And maybe the first step is just acknowledging that you're just a fake wooden toy.
Then, and only then, can the father begin to make you real.