Is Your Story Fake or is it Real?

We easily get caught up in the artificial.

From bodies to food to experiences, we thrive on living out a story that isn’t real.

Visit any amusement park and watch people soak up these types of experiences. We take pictures of buildings made to resemble something real, but are actually fabricated from concrete and styrofoam. We wait in line to have our picture taken with characters from our favorite stories that are only normal people working a job dressed in a costume. We get on rides and have ourselves shaken like a baby’s toy, so that we can have a feeling.

Yes in a sense it is all real. You could touch it and see it and taste it and smell it and hear it. All senses activated. But in another sense, all of it was fake.

photo by joiseyshowaa

I am not saying amusement parks and rides and fun are wrong. My sons and I spent this past weekend at Universal Studios Orlando and we had a great time together. We enjoyed most of the artificial experiences.

I’m only saying that everything was fake. And everyone acted like it real.

Why Do We Love Fake So Much?

We took pictures. We imagined our lives different than what they are. We escaped reality. We ate food that wasn’t healthy. We had our senses thrilled by ups and downs. We were amazed by 3D effects.

We even act shocked when water was squirted in our faces.

We loved it. We soaked it up. We spent too much money on it. All for one reason.

Fake is easier than real.

Fake bodies are built by a scalpel, not discipline. Fake experiences are felt without taking any risk. Fake stories are told without stepping into fear.

One of the hardest things in life is discerning what is real and what is fake. Discerning between what matters and what doesn’t.

Better stories spend less time on the fake and more on what matters.

Is Anything Real?

If you think about it, not much of what we see or do or purchase actually exists. Whether you are a creationist or evolutionist, nothing in this world is actually real.

One view is that God spoke and made the world from nothing.

The other view is that everything in the world was crammed into an incredibly tight space until it exploded. The mass had no form, just incredibly density. And where this mass came from before that is unexplained.

At one point in the past everything we view as being real, didn’t exist. And one day it will cease to exist.

Not our clothing. Not our homes. Not our cars. Not our wealth. Not our poverty.

There is no spoon.

Two Things that are Real

You are. 

Your body is temporary. Your good looks. Your bad looks. Your beautiful hair. Your bald head. Your athletic abilities. Your brains. All will stop existing. All will cease to be.

But you, the essence of who you are, will exist beyond your life.

This is why people matter. This is why every single person on the earth has value. Because they are all real.

And love is real.

When we love, and by love I mean give to others sacrificially in a way that they could never return the gift, we touch them in a way that will always affect them. Love can change the lives of others.

These same others can then turn around and change the lives of more.

One day you and I will die. We will leave all of the stuff we call “real” behind us. And none of this real stuff will matter. We won’t care about any of it.

But if we chose to love, that will matter. It will matter to us. It will matter to those who received it. And the hope is that it will matter in the next life to come.

When we focus on people and focus on love, our stories shift from what is fake to what is real. And they become better.

What in your life is fake? What is real?

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