In 1929, Calvin Coolidge traveled to the Black Hills in North Dakota for a vacation. While there, he was photographed many times dressed in cowboy attire. The one catch being that it isn’t actually cowboy attire. It’s a very fancy, almost silly version of it. At the time, the press mocked the president mercilessly. He responded that it was ok for them to laugh, but that he was living out a childhood dream. Looking at the pictures, there is no way anyone would think that the president was a real cowboy. He tried to dress the part, but in reality, he wasn’t what he was trying to look like. It’s easy to dress up or act like something to try to look the part, but those things are entirely outward. Outward appearance isn’t the same as inward reality. I’ve learned from living amongst ranchers that cowboys are cowboys regardless of how they are dressed. There is an interesting truth in this dynamic. Jesus addressed it amongst the religious leaders of his time when he called them “whitewashed tombs.” The idea being that they looked pretty on the outside, but inside they were dead and rotten to the core. When it comes to following God, it’s easy to fall into the trap where we try to look the part outwardly by putting on the trappings of Christianity but never changing inside. It’s difficult to follow Jesus and experience new life. It’s hard to love our enemies. It’s painful to confess our sins and resist temptation. Serving the poor and loving the unlovable isn’t fun. The basic elements of being a Christian are far more difficult than just looking and talking the part. The reality is that having faith in Jesus and following him leads to new life and peace. Merely looking the part leads to emptiness and results in dying inside. We’ve all known plenty of folks who look good outwardly as Christians, but inwardly are not reflecting Jesus. I’m not saying that Christians are perfect. You will never find a Christian who does not sin. This is not the same thing as faking it. I spent many years of my own life as a believer faking it outwardly. In the end, this way of life is obvious to anyone who looks close enough, just like Calvin Coolidge couldn’t convince folks that he was a real cowboy. I once heard it put this way: Followers of Jesus change from the inside out, not the outside in. Becoming a person like Jesus starts in our hearts and grows outward. It’s not a layer of varnish we apply with the hope that it seeps in to the inner parts of ourselves.
