We want to be known for something. We have an idea of how we want to be known versus what is real. That can cause a huge problem. It causes to have secrets. If you’re married you know this you argue on the way to church and when you pull in the parking lot, you put on your happy Christian face. If you have kids, it multiplies. You warn them that if they cut up that you are going to kill them when you get them home.
I have to be honest with you. I really do not like this topic. This is tough for me because I have secrets of my past. I hid secrets from my parents. I have a secret I haven’t shared with my wife or my kids. I have secrets that my friends don’t know about. There seems to be very fine line between secrets and confidentiality. The secrets I have lean more towards confidentiality that I have had to keep in the context of ministry. There are some bone headed things I have done in my life that my extended family will never know about, but my wife and kids have full knowledge of.
Then there is the secret that my wife and kids don't know - I have secretly wanted to learn to play an instrument and be good enough to play with an orchestra. I love music, but I do not have musical bone in my body.
Having a secret is not a sin. It’s the content of that secret that is potentially damaging to our spiritual life, our home life, our careers, our ministry, or our friends. [tweetherder]There are times that I think having a secret is perfectly alright and I know that it is not[/tweetherder].
I am guessing that I am not the only one reading this that has struggled with this issue. When we find out that people are withholding something from us that we feel we have the right to know, it hurts. How can we move away from having secrets that cause us and others pain?
God must have know that we would struggle with this issue because Jesus encounters a woman in John 4 at a well who was an outcast in her village.. Her life was not a secret to the people that lived in the same village. Everybody knew everything about their neighbors. When she encounters Jesus, and begins to rationalize her religious background, she tries to hide from him her secret. Jesus breaks through her religious cover and she exposes her secret to Jesus.
When Jesus gets to the marriage issue, the past that she tries to forget, the past that dogs her everywhere she goes, rises again. This is the kind of person that Jesus seems to be interested in. This is simply not a story of a woman who meets Jesus, repents of her sin and begins a walk of faith. It is much more than that. What Jesus is doing is sharing with this woman a mystery, a secret. She sincerely wants to know what he is talking about when his speaking of living water.
God knows your secrets and loves you anyway. This is one of those stories in the Bible we just can’t walk away from without doing taking some sort of action. You must decide if you are going to be honest with God and other people.
Before today is over, I want to challenge you to write out secrets you think you have been hiding from God. Go to God and be honest.
