Do You Want To Know A Secret?

We like secrets, especially when we stand to benefit from knowing a certain secret. Secrets are alluring and to possess a secret can make us feel powerful and in control. On most covers of any magazine you will discover that you too can possess the secret to happiness; tight rock-hard abs and buns of steel; how to retire by age 50; becoming a fabulous cook, losing 10 pounds is seven days, and many other secrets that will make us healthy, wealthy and wise.

Then there are those secrets that we carry within us that we never want to reveal. Perhaps the fear of guilt and shame and the risk of being rejected run too deep for many of us. So we hold on to our secrets for the perceived power we feel by maintaining control.


We all have secrets; everyone of us. We don't have to be ashamed of our secrets before God.

This morning I meditated on Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18. This is the lesson about charitable deeds where Jesus instructs his hearers not to be concerned about outward appearances and being seen by others but to enter the secret places of our hearts where God sees in secret. Jesus said that God is in the secret place.

We don’t have to hide in secret from God.

All too often, it is much easier for me to focus on my outward appearance and actions than it is to enter my room and reveal to God the hidden and set apart places within. I can get caught-up with “performing” the ritual and never be inwardly transformed in the secret places in my soul. Cistercian monk Michael Casey says, “Outward observance, however holy, cannot take place of the personal encounter with the Living God.”

For Jesus, this personal encounter with the living God often takes place with in the hidden parts of me. Within my soul live my hopes, lust, dreams, guilt, shame, greed, joy, fear, and every other thing I can imagine. And according to Jesus, God is in our secret places. There is safety with God in those inner places where we often feel vulnerable and unsafe.

God doesn’t live outside the context of my secrets. “Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?" There’s me, my secret, and God. I am not alone with my secret, God is there. “God knows the secrets of the heart.” Psalm 44

God loves us and has not abandoned us to be left alone with our secrets. God is there. God is Love. Love is there in the hidden places that we often feel so unlovable.

So this morning as I prayed and meditated I let God in on the secrets of my heart for there is freedom to acknowledge what God already knows; there is freedom in knowing that God hasn’t rejected, denied or despised me as a result of my secrets. God doesn’t reject me or run away from me because my secrets but begins the inward transformation as I share my secrets; as I reveal who I am. God’s grace abounds in my secret place; God begins to free me to live with authenticity. It seems that my secrets have the ability to keep me locked-up or the ability to set me free, it all depends on what I do with my secrets. There’s the old saying in AA, “We’re only sick as our secrets.” I don’t have to pretend or act righteously in the eyes of people to be accepted or approved while harboring secrets in my soul.

Instead I go to my room and open the door of my heart and share my secrets with the God. I find comfort that God is there.