Keeping Secrets

As mentioned in my last “wellnesswednesday” post, I’m continuing a deep dive through the books of 1 and 2 Kings. And, also as previously mentioned, there is a distinct pattern that becomes evident the longer you read: “XYZ, son of ABC, became king in 123, and ruled for 456 years. He did evil/good in the eyes of the Lord.” This is sometimes followed by an account of specific events that occurred during the reign and a summary of the good or bad things this king achieved.

But as you progress through the book, the mention of kings who “did good in the eyes of the Lord” becomes less and less. In fact, a little over halfway through 1 Kings, we encounter Ahab, who “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him” (v. 16:30) and whose descendants (and even those NOT related to him, after his house was wiped out by God’s judgment) continued a downward spiral–with few exceptions–for 31 more chapters.

In short, this whole “king thing” the Israelites demanded went real sour real fast. And it pretty much stayed that way until God allowed the Israelites to be exiled from the promised land by their enemies.

“All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshipped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places I call their towns.” (2 Kings 17:7-9, emphasis mine)

Did you catch that one line right in the middle there? “The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right.”

Secretly!? The entire books of 1 and 2 King outline horrible things the Israelites and their kings have done. Literally pages and pages of sins. If that wasn’t enough, 2 Kings 17: 7-17 lays out a pretty succinct summary of just what had been going on “in secret” during the reign of these kings. I like to think the writer of 2 Kings added this bit with a little bit cheek; all these sins were most definitely not secret. Not only did he know enough about them to record them, now they have been laid out here for generations to see.

But the use of that word–secretly–perhaps alludes to something deeper. Maybe the Israelites thought their sins were secret; they believed they could hide them from God.

And while it’s easy to scoff at their foolishness, I believe this is something of which you and I are just as guilty today.

We all have things we try to keep secret from God. We all have things we do, say, think, or believe that we hope God doesn’t find out about. We all have areas of our lives in which we try to shut Him out or times during which we convince ourselves He’s absent (or at least looking the other direction).

If we sit down and think about it logically, it’s just as absurd for us to think we can hide things from God as it was for the Israelites. This is the same God who knows “when I sit and when I rise, [who] perceive[s] my thoughts from afar…before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.” (Psalm 139: 2-4)

God knows our thoughts before we think them, our words before we speak them, and our actions before we perform them because “when [we were] woven together in the depths of the earth, [His] eyes saw [our] unformed bod[ies]” (Psalm 139:15) He knows us intimately because He created us; in fact, He knew us even before our created bodies came to be.

So why in the world do we think we can hide anything from Him?

For me personally, I can tell you that there are certain parts of my life–especially sinful parts–that I hold back from Him out of shame. I know right and willfully choose wrong…and it makes me ashamed. I love God, and I genuinely to live a life in obedience and servitude to Him….but I screw up. A lot. And it makes me feel like I have to hide those failures from Him so He won’t be angry–or worse, embarrassed–about me.

Still there are other places I try to keep hidden from Him because I don’t really want to obey Him in those areas. For example, I know God tells me to love those around me–especially my enemies–but there’s this one guy in my neighborhood that I really don’t want to love. He’s arrogant, disrespectful, rude, self-serving….

Sorry, got a tangent there.

Anyway, no matter how many derogatory adjectives I might use to describe this particular person, God still calls me to love him. What do I do instead? I certainly don’t talk to God about it, asking Him for help and guidance. And while I’m not actively mean to this person, I don’t necessarily walk in obedience either. Instead, I stew, allowing anger and resentment about this person to fester, poisoning me from the inside out.

I don’t want God to have this part of me because I don’t really WANT God to change it. Deep down, I don’t feel this man deserves my kindness. But I also don’t want God to see this part of me because it’s ugly. REALLY ugly.

So I keep it hidden.

Or, at least, I pretend to.

Stupid, right? But true.

Yet the only thing these “secrets” have only achieved is creating a distance between the God in my head and the God in my heart. It has created a tangle of barbed wire that harbors any true intimacy I might attain between me and my Creator. To truly connect with the Lord, I have to be honest about myself and those secret sinful areas of my life. Not for Him, because He knows them already. But for ME. To release my grip on the delusional sense of control I still seek to have over my life. To truly surrender to the power of God’s mercy, grace, and love. Only by setting free my imaginary secrets can I truly feel safe in the presence of God–a safety He longs to share with each and every one of us but from which we ourselves continue to reject.

Will you join me today in asking God to come into those secret places of our lives? To make Himself known to us in the moments where we foolishly believe we can hide? In those times when you feel yourself begin to retreat or attempt to conceal things from Him for whatever reason–guilt, shame, fear–boldly ask for His Spirit to wash over you afresh, reminding you of who He is and how much He loves you.

“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.“

–Psalm 139: 7-10