A fellow in Illinois was given a fake palm tree for his outdoor picnic patio area. It was phony, but it was an excellent high quality faux palm tree. Every spring he assembled it and every fall he took it down and stored it. One day a car pulled up in his driveway and a guy who looked to be in his 30's got out because he had seen the neighbor working in his yard. The young guy approached the neighbor with real enthusiasm explaining how impressed he was that he was able to grow a palm tree in the Illinois climate, and he wondered what he fed it and how he cared for it to make it grow so nicely...further explaining how badly he wanted to plant one. The neighbor started to feed the gentleman a line, but couldn't hold back his laughter....so he went on to explain that it was a fake tree, that palm trees would not grow in the Illinois climate. What at first seemed real to the younger man, indeed wasn't.
As you strive to be a more Christ-like man, husband, and father, what kind of image are you showing to others who will be observing you in your daily life? You know...co-workers, wives, you kids, the folks you hang out with, even the folks you see at church. Is what they are seeing real, or are they seeing something like the palm tree supposedly growing in Illinois? How genuine are you as you go through your daily walk?
If you are real, the only line you will ever have to offer to someone who may want to know how you are doing life will be the truth. And if you are being real, and not seeming real, folks will ask you. You see, when it comes to Christianity, unlike the palm tree example, folks can smell a rat. They can easily sense the phony and when they do it drives a wedge between their desire to improve themselves and their asking the relevant questions. They get turned off. And thus a life that perhaps could be turned around may not be.
So the question is....do you seem real, or are you real?
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