Secrets; We've All Got 'Em

Secrets, we've all got them don't we?  And yet when you meet and talk to people you would think you are the only person on the planet who has any secrets to be kept.  People as a whole are pretty good actors, because we've all got a few skeletons in our closets; you know things we don't want anyone to ever find out about us, but you would never know it to talk to them.

It's pretty crazy too, how we think we can stash these secrets away, figuring they will never be found out.  But in the end, secrets have a way of escaping from the behind the closet doors in our lives, often to our embarrassment and shame.  

One of my favorite stories found in the Bible is about King David and the time he watched a young lady taking a bath.  You can find it in 2 Samuel 11, but here is the "Dave" version. There was a time when kings were supposed to go to war, but King David stayed behind and sent his men on to the battle. One night he went for a walk on the roof of his palace, and happened to notice a lady bathing.  Immediately, he sent men to find out who she was, and she ends up coming to see the king, and they have sex producing a child.

This woman belonged to another man; one of David's own bodyguards, and this didn't even stop him from doing what he did.  Ultimately it ended in the death of Uriah, David's man. This secret came out, and David was humiliated by it, losing the respect of his men, and the people he ruled not to mention the son Bathsheba had given birth to.

We tend to hide our secrets because we are trying desperately to not look bad in the eyes of others. We are so concerned with our image, we let our integrity go by the wayside. While in the end, most secrets come to the light of day, embarrassing us anyway.  And this isn't just in Bible stories, it doesn't end there, every day we hear some story about someone who turns out to be someone different than we all thought.  

We see it on the news, or read it in an article and think to ourselves, "Oh my, how can this be?  I thought they were such a good person."  But the truth is, we start running through the Rolodex in our brain searching for our own skeletons making sure they are still hidden from view, with the thought, "If they can get to him, they can get me too."  

It's a horrible place to live as I'm sure you are well aware, I know this has been my address before.  What really makes this bad, is we were never meant to live like this. Adam and Eve started us on this path so many, many years ago, hiding from God after partaking of the fruit they were told not to eat. And to this day, we are all still trying to hide who we are too. We are bound by the secrets in our lives, because they keep us from living full lives they way we were intended to.

Maybe what we need to do, is offer a little bit of grace to those around us, realizing they, just like us have secrets which are keeping them bound and they need to be free from. What if we all worked at not having secrets? What if we brought those skeletons out of the closet into the light of day, and set them free? I'm pretty sure we would all be better people for it too. No more secrets to keep hidden from view, no more watching what we say, trying to keep people from knowing the truth about us; which is we are all imperfect, there is no one perfect, except Jesus.

Let's open the closet doors, release the skeletons and find the full life we are supposed to live; free of guilt and shame. Until next time, strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King.