ane walked into church with a heavy heart. The last thing she felt like doing was worshipping. Her mind was still replaying the events of a chaotic, strife-filled morning.

It all began with a silly fight she had with her husband over a lack of clean socks. The negativity spilled over into interactions with her kids. She and her teenage daughter engaged in a disturbing shouting match, one of many recently. This time it was over why she couldn't wear a miniskirt to church. "Fine! Do whatever you want. I don't care!" Jane had screamed in exasperation. "You never listen to a word I say!"

The final straw was the temper tantrum her five-year-old threw in the car because he couldn't invite a friend to lunch.

But there she stood, smiling and singing about the peace and mercy of God and feeling like a total fraud. Her friend Susan slipped in next to her. A few moments later she leaned over and whispered, "Is everything okay? You seem a little preoccupied."

"Everything is great," Jane replied. "I'm just a little tired, I guess."

Many of us have become frighteningly adept at donning a false face to the public. We pretend to be one person, but we're really someone else.

What's at stake is our integrity. If you're like most people, you probably equate integrity with being a basically honest person. "Sure," you might think. "I have integrity. I don't lie, cheat or steal."

In reality, true integrity goes much deeper. We may not always realize it, but exhibiting integrity - being authentic - is often a moment-by-moment battle. It encompasses the constant struggle to not alter our words and actions based on what someone else might think.

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines integrity as "the quality or state of being complete or undivided." According to Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Thomas Nelson, 1996), in the Old Testament, tom, a Hebrew word for integrity, suggests "that which is whole, complete and transparently free of duplicity." Whew! That's a tall order for sure. How on earth do we do that?

Faking it since the Fall

"We're all in recovery from fallenness. Every one of us struggles with the fear, shame and guilt that started with Adam and Eve," says Paul Belvitch, MA, LMHC, a Christian relationship counselor in private practice in southwest Florida. "They were the first to try to ‘hide' their condition in the Garden of Eden." We've been doing it ever since.

As Christians, we feel pressure to portray a nice, neat, perfect package to the public. We're supposed to have it all together. The result is lots of hurting people walking around with pretty facades, feeling empty and alone.

Satan loves our isolation. He knows that community was God's idea. Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." Honest, authentic relationships that allow us to safely reveal our quirks and flaws encourage us to grow spiritually.

In his book "Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them" (Zondervan, 2003), John Ortberg writes, "... for better or worse we are shaped more by people than any other force in life. In the same way, more than anything else, God uses people to heal people."

Diagnosing duplicity

Do you recognize any of these common symptoms of duplicity in your life?

Preoccupation with image. How much of your conversation is about subtly making yourself look good? Do you distort the truth when it makes you look bad? To gain perspective on how unappealing this is, consider the Pharisees. Their self-promotion and sparkling exterior served only to alienate other people and make them feel inferior.

Burnout. When your motivation is to please people, you end up exhausted. "In general, if you're consistently drained, you're probably doing things God did not call you to do," says Belvitch. When we are working for his glory and not our own, he gives us the ability to accomplish things beyond our human capabilities.

Keeping peace at all costs. People with integrity are lovingly honest about grievances - even when it's easier to keep quiet. In "Honest to God? Becoming an Authentic Christian" (Zondervan, 1990), Bill Hybels says this: "The counterfeit peace of inauthentic relationships always deteriorates into relational death. Therefore, you must pursue truth-telling; you must risk the tunnel (of chaos)."

Steps to transparency

Jesus is our ultimate role model of integrity. He wasn't afraid to disappoint. He didn't serve out of expectations or obligation. His goal was to please the Father, plain and simple. How can we move closer to his example?

Use Scripture as a mirror. Growth in this area takes time. It requires studying the Word with a humble heart. Consider James 1:23-24: "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like."

Consistently re-evaluate your commitments. "Ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this? Is this what God called me to do?'" says Belvitch. Use Colossians 3:23 as a guide: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."

Be honest in the little things. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." (Luke 16:10)

Find your Nathan. In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan took tremendous risk in confronting King David about his duplicity. We all need a Nathan. Find at least one person who knows you well and is bold enough to keep you accountable.

Like Jane, we all fear exposure, but the cost of duplicity is far greater. Ortberg agrees. "The irony of the masks is that although we wear them to make other people think well of us, they are drawn to us only when we take them off."