My head hurts, my nose looks funny, and I’m trying to decide which is worse.

As I write this, I’ve just come home from a violent encounter with my dermatologist. He sprayed the heck out of a seriously itchy spot on the back of my head just above the hairline, and it’s pretty painful. Worse yet, he cut a couple of biopsies out of the very tip of my nose. There’s no pain to it, but having that wound on the most prominent part of my face makes me look ridiculous. It looks bad even with a Band-Aid on it.

Hmm … I guess I’ve already decided which is worse. Those words “worse yet” spilled right out of me without even thinking. And it’s true: Given a choice, I’d rather be in physical pain than look ridiculous.

The Need to Save Face

We go to great lengths to keep from looking silly, don’t we? In the Orient they call it “saving face,” which has an ironic ring to me today, since I just had a small part of my face removed and sent to the lab. It’s one of the more important social motivators in Asia, but really, we’re all like that to some extent.

Check it out next time you’re at an airport gate. Someone will be trying to sleep in his chair. He can’t find room to stretch his legs out, he’s getting a crick in his neck from trying to rest his head on the back of the chair, and he’s all twisted up between the arm rests. But he wouldn’t dare lie down on the floor and use the inflatable pillow he’s got in his carry-on. People would stare. He’d feel ridiculous.

My wife hasn’t seen me yet this afternoon. I’d rather she wouldn’t have to see me like this. I’ve already sent her a warning via text message, so she won’t be as shocked. Or at least won’t show it as much.

Relationships and Choices

Either I face up to a problem with my face, or I hide myself.

But choices enter in here, too, don’t they? Either I face up to a problem with my face, or I hide myself from her. Those are my only options. Which pain do I prefer? The answer is easy: Sara’s love for me far outweighs any physical blemish she might see in me, and my desire to be with her far outweighs my own urge to play the complete hermit. Meanwhile, though, I’ve canceled my usual Tuesday Facebook Live videocast next week. We make our choices.

And we have the same choice to make with God, don’t we? Except with God, it’s our moral blemishes we have to face up to. We could try to cover them with Band-Aids like, “It wasn’t really my fault,” or “I’ll do better next time, I promise!” But just as the wound on my nose looks wrong, with or without the bandage, so also do our moral faults. That takes moral cover-up out of our list of options. All we’re left with is to face up — meaning ‘fess up — or else try to hide.

Getting Past the Urge to Hide

Trying to save face with God means creating distance between ourselves and Him.

I understand the urge to hide. The thing is, though, even as hiding from my wife would require going into hermit mode, trying to save face with God means creating distance between ourselves and Him. It means alienating ourselves from the universe’s one great ultimate source of joy and life and love. It requires us to turn away from the One who suffered the humiliation of the cross so that He could forgive the humiliation of our faults; so that He could look past them and see the person inside that He intended each one of us to be.

We can’t become that person, though, unless we acknowledge that the pain of separation from God is worse than the pain of admitting — to Him and also to ourselves — that we’re blemished and that we need Him.

Take it from me, though. I’ve made that choice. He knows my flaws already, better even than I do, and He loves me anyway. I don’t want to hide from Him, any more than I would from my wife. Why would anyone?