All come free!

Hide or seek - do you remember the game? When we played it as kids, it was usually in the yard and we had to come up with clever hiding places behind shrubs, up on a tree limb, or maybe behind the trash can. The places weren't all that 'concealing', but they worked! We'd hide in the most obscure, hoping not to be found, but when we were, we would then become the seeker. Do you ever remember finding that one spot no one would ever imagine you'd hide and you'd be there until someone called 'all come free'? That spot in my yard was deep inside of this huge cypress tree. We had two of these teardrop shaped trees lining the driveway and they were huge. The inside left you totally obscured from sight, but it came with some risks. Have you any idea what lives inside those branches? Spiders, bees, hornets, just to name a few! The hiding was supreme, but the risks in the hiding were huge!

“This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.” (John 3:20-21 MSG)

The purpose of hiding is to keep hidden from view - so as to keep something secret or shut off from others. On occasion, the things we hide are pretty insignificant, like that candy bar we are saving for that day when we just need that little indulgent treat to get us through. At other times, the things we hide are not so 'harmless' - in fact, they almost are being 'kept in secret' because we don't want anyone to know those things about us! We want to avoid having those things exposed, so we won't have to face some form of 'pain' if they were to be seen or realized. The problem with running from God's light is that it penetrates where darkness attempts to hide - no amount of darkness is ever really going to cover over what we seek to hide so deeply - his light is able to see past the dark places!

Hiding always comes with some risks - either because the hiding produces some form of risk to us (like the inside of the cypress tree), or because discovery would be our undoing! The hiding places in our lives aren't really all that robust. The principle of camouflage may have been used to cover over something in our lives, but even a well camouflaged thing isn't going to be completely unrecognized by the trained eye. The trained eye will spot the little incongruities that exist with that clever conceal. God's light, combined with his 'trained eye', makes it virtually impossible to totally conceal what we think shouldn't be known or seen by anyone.

Exposure is indeed painful - it requires a degree of honesty that many are not comfortable with because if we are honest with ourselves, we are also asking others to be honest with us. We might be inclined to bring things into the light if we know others won't judge us for whatever that thing might be. The only one who really doesn't judge us for bringing things out into the light is Christ himself. Yes, he helps us have deeply honest relationships with each other, but trust me on this one - as honest as we might be with each other, it is hard for us not to judge each other. Christ has already been judged on our behalf for whatever it is we are trying to conceal, so he doesn't need to judge us for that thing! It has already been judged and the thing has already been forgiven. Just sayin!

The big reveal...

People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy. Blessed are those who fear to do wrong, but the stubborn are headed for serious trouble. (Proverbs 28:13-14 NLT)

You might have heard it said that confession is good for the soul - it is also good for everything else! I am not talking about the kind of confession where you tell a man in a small wooden box your sins while you are kneeling in a small wooden box next to him. I am talking about the willingness to be transparent when you do something wrong, to take responsibility, and to seek forgiveness from those you have hurt in the process (God first, then others, and even yourself).

Concealment involves keeping something under cover. I liken it to the covering over of an object with twigs and leaves to have it "blend in unnoticed" in the forest. The idea of concealing anything is that you don't want it noticed - you don't want it to catch the attention of anyone. You know it is there, but you don't want others to know it exists. It involves putting something "out of sight", but also "under cover" - both with the intent of limiting "disclosure".

I don't want everyone to know my security password for my bank account - it is concealed and I do my best to keep it that way. I use this "concealment tactic" wisely as it applies to keeping the security of my bank account. I would not be using this same tactic wisely if I sought to hide money from someone in an unknown account, or perhaps even hide a wrong-doing I was engaged in such as an illegal activity. Concealment has a "right time and place" - the purpose of which is to protect something from those who should not have access to it.

Concealment also has a "wrong intent" - especially when it is to attempt to hide a wrong-doing or cover-up an unwise action on our part. Confession is the "bringing out into the open" - but it isn't to flaunt the wrong-doing, or to shame the one who has taken unwise steps with one's life. It is always to bring restoration - to reveal the misguided actions is to place one self in the place where those actions can be corrected, not engaged in again, and replaced with more wholesome (right and true) actions.

In God's economy, truthfulness with him yields grace in return. Confession is met not with judgment and condemnation, but with love and grace. It might be hard for us to grasp this concept because our immediate action to someone having done wrong is to find fault with their missteps. We want to poke at their failure as though we were poking at an open wound. There is no stopping how hurtful we can sometimes be when someone actually engages in the action of no longer concealing their wrong-doing. Wisdom demands grace - foolishness always renders judgment and condemnation.

God wants us to be wise in our treatment of another's wrong-doing. He wants us to be graceful and loving in our response to their transparency - for he knows how hard it was for them to "uncover" what they had been keeping under wraps for sometimes a very long time. Grace doesn't rip the cover off - it allows the twigs and leaves to be removed one by one until what is underneath all that concealment is fully and completely revealed. Love even holds their hand while they gradually lift those twigs and pull away those layers and layers of protection. Just sayin!