From the time I was in grade school to the present, I’ve had a fascination with colorful shirts. I recall like it was yesterday, the first thing I bought with my paper route money was a purple shirt, flared sleeves and matching purple bell bottom jeans. I love bright colors, fancy designs, woven jacquards, and especially paisley prints, my signature look. In fact, my friends at church refer to them as Joe shirts, shirts that I would typically wear. Some might suggest I should dress more conservatively for my age. I think not! I just recently cleaned out my closet of older shirts to donate, and I still have over 100, and I just bought a couple more!

However, at my more mature age I’ve come to realize something. While I do love flamboyant shirts, lately I’ve been using them as a distraction. You see, I know what lies beneath them. For most of my life I maintained an active lifestyle and an athletic physique. On most Summer days you could find me wearing no shirts at all, very comfortable and not shy. But as I began experiencing health issues in my forties, that physique went away and my wardrobe grew ever more colorful. I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror as I was haunted by the memories of how I used to look compared to the disease ridden shape I was now in. I was no longer comfortable with my appearance and I worried over how I was viewed by others. My colorful shirts distracted others from seeing what I was hiding.

I wonder how many people do the same in their lives. They create false images, facades, to hide what they really look like. This is never more evident than on dating sites when profile photos are so altered by filters that the real person shows up unrecognizable. We do whatever we must to hide our insecurities, our weaknesses, our ugliness. We don’t want the world to see the real person behind the facade for fear they too would be as repulsed as we are. We may hide behind being a comic, buying extravagant gifts, never saying no to friends, volunteering for every event-all to distract others from seeing the real us. But what we see and what God sees, are entirely different!

I tend to look back over the trail of destruction in my wake, but God looks forward into the future plans and achievements he has in store for me. He made accommodations long ago for all my failures, mistakes, bad decisions and disobedience. In Christ, he sees us as precious, bought and refurbished by the Cross, the one he leaves the ninety-nine for. In Luke 12 we are told God sees the smallest of sparrows and that we are much more valuable than they are. In Ephesians 1 we are told that God chose us and knew us with all our imperfections, before he created the world, and that we are valuable to him because of the high price he paid for us. In 1 John 3 we are referred to as God’s beloved children. It’s almost unfathomable that the one who sees all the things we try to hide from others, is the one who loves us the most. Only God sees behind jacquards, paisley, loud colors and sequins. His son died for those very things we try to conceal, the ugliness we don’t want to see in the mirror, the scars from our numerous defeats and the haunts that we’ll never be good enough. We consider all of our disqualifications; God sees us perfected through Christ. We see ourselves as the poop scoopers in the parade; He sees us as Grand Marshalls on the leading float!

In my eyes there are not enough shirts to hide behind, but in God’s eyes I’m free to go shirtless. But I still need 100 shirts!