I was hanging out with the students of our student community or Stuco (check 'em out here) at 242 this past weekend and met two interesting young men.

Both of these gentlemen are seniors in high school and were helping set up our portable church, as mandated by court order. From time to time people do community service through our church and it is always a cool opportunity to connect them with the 2-4-2. Anyway - who knows what they did that landed them there, but after introducing myself to Kevin and Chad, I inquired about their future and the conversation went like this:

Me: Kevin, what are you going to do when you graduate?
Kevin: Whatever God wants.
Me: What's that mean?
Kevin: [blank stare]
Chad: I'm going to college and then going to open my own landscaping business.
Me: Cool.
Chad: Yeah, my uncle gave me ten hundred thousand dollars to start a business.
Me: [smirking] Really, that's cool.

It was funny, kinda cute and also sad all at the same time. Kevin thought a 'Sunday School' answer would make me happy. I wasn't asking an empty question and an empty answer never suffices - I really wanted to know. And what made Chad feel like he has to lie to me? A million dollars Chad, I mean ten hundred thousand dollars Chad? Why couldn't you just say you wanted to get into landscaping? Or why didn't they both just say an honest, 'I don't know.'

It was one of those 'that's cute kid' moments - but it got me thinking.

What is it about church, people and religion that creates pressure for people to not be themselves, stretch the truth and pretend to be someone they're not? Why do we, I, you feel this pressure to say things we don't mean and ever so slightly stretch the truth in regards to our dreams, our families, our jobs, our blogs, our twitter following, our Facebook friends or anything else? I wonder how many times God listens in our conversations and vain thoughts and [smirking] thinks, 'that's cute kid' ?