There have been hundreds, if not thousands of moments over my life that have humbled me and revealed the truth of my heart. Real relationships have a way of becoming mirrors to the honest reality of what we believe. In less poetic terms, living life with other people shows me what I really, truly, actually think and not just what I sing and repeat on a Sunday morning or post on my Instagram account. When it comes down to it, what I believe shows up in the way I really live.

This happens in less spiritual ways for me, of course. I can tell my friends all day long that I love healthy food, but one peek into my pantry will reveal a stack of my favorite boxed mac and cheese (with spiral noodles!), my preferred brand of salty jalapeno kettle chips, and sugar-coated sour candies. Crack open the door to my fridge, and you’ll find it stocked with my mega, Costco-sized pack of Diet Coke. I might say I love eating healthy, but my home tells the real story. I can write all day about how damaging the doomscroll is. How mindless and emotionally vacuous it is to swipe through social media and play tiny little games on a screen in my hand. I can praise the importance of the outdoors, of physical activity, of sunshine and Vitamin D, family time and screen-free dinners. Yet if you check on me at night, you might find that very high horse tucked away somewhere in my closet as I drape myself across the bed, scrolling through reels or playing just one more round of whatever addicting mix-and-match game has found me that evening.

What I believe shows up in the way I actually, really live.

The Mirror of Daily Life

My children get a front row seat to this reality. So does my husband. Anyone who observes my life in its raw, dusty reality will see the truth. I’ve spiraled at bad news, I’ve yelled at other drivers on the road, I’ve been snarky with my husband, I’ve snapped at my kids, I’ve not stopped to pray, to apologize, to repent, to seek the Lord. All things we all have done, I’m sure, but when the bad news hits, when the attitude within me bubbles out before I’ve self-edited, when my face says what I really think before I can fake it—my beliefs tumble out loudly too.

I’m sharing with you honestly here because I’ve learned this—pretending that we’re all buttoned up and perfect is part of the problem. We have to start somewhere, and admitting that we don’t always practice what we preach or live what we say we believe seems like a good and honest beginning.

Turning Conviction into Action

And so I’ve asked the Lord to correct me—to bring that sharp conviction when it happens. Sometimes it’s as sudden as a Sunday morning prayer request. Instead of saying, “Hey, I’ll be praying for you,” I’m letting the Lord stop me in my tracks to ask, “Can we pray right now?” Texts from friends have turned into impromptu prayers at home. If I tell my children we can take anything to the Lord in prayer but I fail to actually do so myself, I'm really just telling them that it’s a nice idiom, but I don’t actually believe it.

I see the truth of my heart when I encounter someone who I resent. Do I really believe in forgiveness? In a love that covers a multitude of sins? Or do I nurse that grudge as soon as their face pops up in the grocery store or on my Facebook feed? All of those things I’ve said about generosity, helping the poor, making room at the table for strangers, and being willing to give away everything I have sound really kind and beautiful. But how do I respond when I encounter someone in need on the city streets, in my neighborhood, in my own family? When those I’ve mentally dismissed as “other” suddenly move in next door, what I believe shows up in the way I really live.

Rats in the Basement: What Unplanned Moments Reveal

That initial reaction is like the rats in the basement that C.S. Lewis writes about in Mere Christianity¹. He acknowledges his own sin and the disappointments he has in himself and remarks that at first he considered it had only come out because he wasn’t prepared and was simply caught off guard. But the truth of our hearts is similar to rats in the basement. In my case, it’s mice and wolf spiders. It’s not that they aren’t there; it’s that the sudden turning on of the lights reveals where they really live. If I go into my cellar singing and stomping before a light turns on, lo and behold, there are no critters to greet me along the stone foundation walls. But if I turn on the lights suddenly, tiptoeing into their realm, the shock of light reveals the truth—they’ve been there the whole time.

We’re like this, aren’t we? We like to fool ourselves and tell others that we are of the noble, spiritual, Christ-like, faith-filled, kind, fruit-of-the-Spirit kind of folk. But then something jostles us, someone interrupts us or cuts us off, something shatters our veneer of control, and what splashes out isn’t what we’ve been saying this whole time. Rats scatter out of our speech and hearts, mice scurry up the walls of our foundation, wolf spiders sneer with the truth of our hearts visible for anyone nearby to see.

Testing the Integrity of Our Faith

If we say we’re kind but only extend kindness to those who can pay us back in the same way, we’re not really kind. We’re just good negotiators.

If we say we’re generous but fearfully obsess over every dime, hoard our belongings and comforts for ourselves, and consider first only what we want and need, we’re not really generous. We just like the feeling of being someone else’s benefactor every now and then.

If we say we’re grace-driven and want to model Christ in our extension of it but complain incessantly about our coworkers, our neighbors, the cashier, that driver in front of us, our spouses, our kids, our in-laws, we’re not really full of grace. We just want to have grace for ourselves.

If we say we’re driven by love and believe that the love of God is for all but only practically love those who look like us, think like us, shop and eat and spend like us, then we’re not really loving. At that point, our love is reduced to a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

If we say we believe in the complete and total work of the cross but find ourselves driven daily by fear, legalism, and trying to earn our place before God, we’re not actually letting the gospel work its way into our actions. We’re still stuck on the hamster wheel of a works-based salvation.

This can start small for us—apologizing to our kids and asking for their forgiveness as soon as we feel that conviction settle in, stopping whatever we’re doing to pray right then, being more aware of the motivations of our heart when we give, share, vote, comment, and interact with the world around us. Our children have had a front-row seat to what we really believe, simply because they have a front-row view to how we really live. They see if we believe in grace, mercy, forgiveness. They hear if we really think it’s wrong to gossip or lie. They witness our lives up close and personal.

Jesus talked about this in Matthew 15:18–20: “But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a person. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slander. These are the things that defile a person.”

Finding Grace in Ongoing Sanctification

I want to live more honestly with myself. I want to be honest before the Lord. He already knows, of course. Psalm 139:4 reminds me: “Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, LORD.”

He knows when we’re just flapping our lips and when our hearts are really telling a different story. He knows when the beliefs of our hearts are far different from whatever empty actions we’ve managed to offer. But there is grace even for this. The point is not to overanalyze and criticize ourselves but to step boldly and honestly into Christ’s transformative grace even when we blurt out an angry response, spiral into anxiety, or fail to pray for that friend.

I want to live in such a way that I’m consistent—not just before the ones who bear witness to my life and testimony but so that I’m consistent with Jesus. Sanctification is still at work within me, no doubt. Those with the front-row seats will confirm this. May we be believers who find that as the gospel works its way down into the mess of our hearts and the rodents in the basement, that we are willing to admit when we don’t fully believe what we say we do. And I do know this—right there in that gap of “I believe!” and “help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24, ESV), Jesus shows up. That is the truest thing I can tell you today.

If you liked this article, check out the related resources linked below!

Notes:

1. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 164–165.

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Author Bio

Andrea G. Burke is the author of A Bit of Earth and The Quiet Resistance and is on staff at Grace Road Church in Rochester, New York. She is married to Jedediah, and they are raising their two kids, two dogs, two cats, a few strays, a lot of ducks, and chickens in an old farmhouse near Rochester. You can find more about her on her website (AndreaGBurke.com) or on Substack, where she writes somewhat regularly (andreaburke.substack.com).

Related Resources:

Grace in the Wilderness | 1 Peter Bible Study		Good Christian Girl		In Christ Alone | Romans Bible Study
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