Do you remember that scene at the end of the movie The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy and her three friends finally appear before the great and wonderful wizard? They all stand there, trembling and stuttering … until Toto happens to pull back the curtain, revealing that this is no wizard at all. It’s just a little old man, huffing and puffing, and trying his best to keep up the charade!

A lot of us (that is, if we’re really honest with ourselves) probably aren’t too far removed from that scene. We spend our lives, or at least large portions of them, hiding behind a curtain, pulling levers and talking loudly, and hoping that no one will ever discover the truth about us.

We are not doing this because we are bad people, mind you. As Professor Marvel put it when Dorothy confronted him—“I’m not a bad man. I’m just a very bad wizard.”

So why do we insist on pretending to be something we’re not? Well, the short answer is because we’re afraid. Afraid of being rejected … afraid of being laughed at … afraid that if the curtain were ever pulled back, and people saw us for who we really are, we would no longer be loved.

It is an exhausting way to live, no doubt about it … which is precisely why the Bible keeps trying to convince us that we don’t have to live this way. Consider the conversation that Jesus has with the Samaritan woman at the well. Not only does he talk with her, he asks her for a drink of water—something that would have been unheard of in those times.

She can’t believe that he is making such a request, and Jesus replies that, if she knew who he was, she would probably be requesting the same thing from him. “For I can give you living water,” Jesus tells her.

Now, maybe it was the fact that he was talking to her, or that he was looking at her—really looking at her—but something gave this woman the assurance that she didn’t need to hide anymore. She could pull back the curtain and admit that her relational life was a complete mess. She had been married five times and was now living with a man who would not even give her the dignity of marriage.

And the amazing thing is that Jesus already seemed to know. “I’m well aware of all of that,” he told her.

What a gift … because, you see, if he had offered her this living water without revealing what he knew, then she would have accepted it, but still been plagued by the hidden suspicion that, “If he only knew what my life was really like, the offer would be immediately withdrawn.” But as it is, he is saying, “I know everything about you, and I still love you.”

The bottom line is that we don’t need to pretend anymore—not with God. The liberating truth that the gospel offers us is that we can pull back the curtain on our lives without the least bit of hesitation. We are known through and through … and we are loved through and through!