1 Kings 14

Pretending

Why feignest thou thyself to be another? 1 Kings 14:6.

These words were spoken to a queen who was trying to make herself look like a peasant woman. She was the wife of King Jeroboam. Her little boy was very sick and she had come to see the prophet Ahijah hoping that he would speak some word to make the child well again.

Now the king knew that the prophet was very displeased with him because he had abandoned the true God for idols, and he thought that if Ahijah knew who the queen was he would refuse to give her a blessing. So he told her to dress herself like a peasant woman and take the prophet a present such as a farmer's wife might bring bread and cakes, and a jar of honey.

But God whispered in Ahijah's ear that the wife of King Jeroboam was coming to visit him in disguise. So, although he was blind, the prophet knew the queen the moment she crossed the threshold, and he called out to her, “Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? Why art thou pretending to be somebody else?” I think the queen must have felt very frightened when she knew she had been found out,

I want to speak to you today about bad pretending. But what do we mean by bad pretending? Well, there are two or three different kinds of pretending, and they are not all bad. There is the kind we do when we are very small and that is a good kind. Why, it wouldn't be worth while being a boy or girl if we couldn't pretend. Whatever should we do on a wet day if we couldn't be kings, and queens, and sports players, and cowboys, and animals, and train operators, and cannibals, and explorers, and pirates? Half the fun in life would be gone if we couldn't dress up and imagine we were somebody else.

And there is the kind of pretending some of us do when we have got some nasty medicine to swallow or some disagreeable task to perform. We can try to imagine it is something really quite nice and pleasant. That is a brave kind of pretending.

But there are other kinds of pretending that are not quite so harmless. Some people have tried so hard to ape somebody else that they have forgotten what their real selves are like. And some people have so got into the habit of pretending to be better, or richer, or cleverer than they are that nobody knows which is the real person and which is the pretense. And so I want to say two things to you first be yourself and second be what you seem.

1. Be yourself. I have known boys who admired a big brother, or uncle, or cousin, or friend so much that they went on imitating him until they really began to look a little like him. Well, so long as the friend was worth imitating I don't know that it was altogether a bad thing. But there is always a danger that we imitate the wrong person, and there is always a danger that we imitate so hard that we lose our own individuality, that we cease to be ourselves and just turn out bad copies of somebody else.

And then sometimes it is the fashion to behave and speak in a particular way and everybody tries to copy that way.

Once I visited a small town where there were a number of girls just growing up, and there was one thing that struck me about them. Although their faces were different, their actions and their conversation were extraordinarily alike. You could almost be sure that, given the same circumstances, they would behave in exactly the same way. They had only two adjectives. One of them was “beastly,” the other was “ripping.” And if you asked them a question, or made a remark, you could almost foretell what the answer would be, and almost foresee the particular kind of smile with which it would be accompanied. Well, of course, you grew very tired of seeing and hearing the same thing over and over again. I don't know whom these girls were trying to copy, or who and what they were “feigning to be,” but they weren't like real, live girls at all; they were just puppets.

Now God never meant us to be made all of one pattern. The world would be a very dull place if all the flowers were the same shape and color, and all the birds sang the same songs. You have a place to fill that nobody else can fill and a work to do that nobody else can do, and God wants you to be just yourself.

2. Be what you seem to be. In the insect kingdom there are some wonderful insects which look just like a bit of the plant or flower they are resting upon. There are the stick insects whose bodies resemble stems both in shape and in color, and whose legs look like twigs. Although some of them are over a foot long it is very difficult to see them when they are resting on the branch of a tree or shrub. Away in Ceylon there is an insect called the leaf insect which has made itself look exactly like one of the leaves of the plant on which it rests. It has copied the color of the leaf and it has even imitated its veins and markings. And there is another insect which in the early stages of its existence has no wings to help it to escape from its enemies. So it drags itself through old spider's webs and covers itself with web and dust until it makes itself look very big and terrifying. When the time comes for it to have wings it brushes off its dirty coat.

Now all these creatures have some excuse for looking like something else. They are small and feeble, and they wear a disguise to protect them from their enemies. But we have no excuse for seeming what we are not.

Do you know the fable of the jackdaw that tried to be a peacock? He thought the peacocks were very fine birds, and he admired their beautiful tails and their grand manners. So one day he picked up some of their old feathers that were lying about the yard and stuck them in his own tail. And then he went to call on the peacocks. But the peacocks were not a bit taken in. First they laughed at him, and then they ran at him and plucked out his borrowed feathers. And when he returned to the jackdaws they would have nothing to do with him either, because he had thought himself too grand for them and only fit to be a peacock. So the silly jackdaw learned too late that it is better to be a real jackdaw than an imitation peacock, it is better to be true and humble than false and grand.

The people who pretend to be greater than they are, are called “snobs.” But there is something worse even than being a snob, and that is being a hypocrite. And that is the name we give to those who pretend to be better than they are.

On a hill near Bath there stands a building that looks like a fine castle. But it isn't a castle at all; it is only a wall built to look like a castle, and the people there call it “Sham Castle.”

You wouldn't like just to be shams, would you, empty shams that are of no use to anybody? Then be real and true. Scorn all deceitful ways. Be the kind of boy and girl whose word can be relied on, the kind of boy and girl whom everybody can trust. Be upright and downright at all times. Then you will never run the risk of being anything else than what you seem to be.