You can't spin God.

Here’s something I’m finally getting through my head after all my years: You can’t spin God.

You can’t manipulate the way you come across to Him, putting a carefully calculated foot forward. You can’t give Him a little bit of you and make it look good or acceptable and then tuck the rest away.

We all do that with other people. Some of us do it a lot. We manipulate the way we appear to people or even to ourselves, doing whatever we can to make ourselves look a little better than we are or a little more clever, a little more selfless or a little more cool. We may even “’fess up” to a smaller sin in order to hide something even deeper.

Sometimes we do it on purpose. Sometimes we do it by reflex and don’t even know what we’re doing. All too often, we even manage to fool ourselves.

But none of that works with God because He sees beyond the spin. He looks right through the image you project to others and even—maybe especially—the lies you give yourself and the issues you may not recognize.

Right through to the person you really are.

“For God sees not as man sees,” the Bible tells us, “for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7 nasb).

That means there’s no use even trying to pretend with Him. In fact, the more you pay attention to God and the closer you draw to Him, the more you’ll learn about who you are and who you can be—because God sees your complete self and can reveal it to you. He can shine His light on the hurt places and the sin places, revealing in order to redeem and to heal.

Jesus did exactly that in the Gospels. He looked at people and cut through their hypocrisy, their self-protection, their fear and confusion and delusions. Again and again He put His finger not only on who they really were, but on what they needed most.

When the scribes and Pharisees tried to trick Him with their questions and accusations, He punctured their pretenses, revealing their pride and spiritual bankruptcy.

When the rich young ruler asked what he needed to do about eternal life, Jesus cut right through to the man’s weak spot: his materialistic values (Mark 10:17-22).

When the Samaritan woman at the well misrepresented her family situation, He zeroed in on her brokenness, her loneliness, her troubled past. As she later related to her neighbors, He “told me everything I ever did.” Then He offered her what she needed most: the gift of Himself (John 4:1–42).

And later, when Simon Peter loudly proclaimed His love and loyalty—“I’ll never betray you!”—Jesus gently skewered his bravado and predicted His friend would do exactly what he never wanted to do (Matt. 26:31–35).

It’s not a comfortable thing, being seen as we are, without spin, without pretense. It can be embarrassing, humiliating, even devastating. And some people, like the Pharisees, just can’t take it. But being seen as we are can also be liberating, once we realize that the God who sees us as we are also loves us exactly as we are.

When we’re so tired we can’t think straight.

When we’re worrying about finances or obsessing about a dinner that needs to go just right or so furious we just can’t keep our mouths shut.

When we do a hard thing and fall on our face or want to do the right thing and don’t quite manage it.

When we quietly serve others, then grumble because no one notices.

God sees it all. And none of it changes the way He looks at us.

And He knows who we can be and who He has created us to be.

Adapted from The God Who Sees You by Tammy Maltby (with Anne Christian Buchanan). Copyright 2012 David C. Cook. Used with permission. Permission required to reproduce. All rights reserved. The God Who Sees You