February Spiritual ethoughts Monthly

Not So Hidden

My daughter is supposed to take a nap, or at least a rest, each day. If she doesn’t, she loses her ability to cope by about 5p.m.. She’s not that different from me when I’m sleep deprived. Usually after noontime, I’ll say to her, “You’re eyes look really tired. I think you need a rest for a little bit.”  

And her eyes do look tired. They get shady circles around the bottoms, and turn reddish on the lids. One day after she had been in her room for a while, she came out. She made her way down the stairs slowly. Her arm was pulled up to her face.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing. And I’m not tired,” she said.

She was covering her eyes so I wouldn’t find her out. She was afraid, I'd see the obvious tiredness in her eyes, and deem her too ill rested to emerge from her room. It’s amazing how we all hide things. We stop acting transparent with God, and others, as we realize we have something to hide. In a sense, we are only really hiding the fact to ourselves, because God knows all the facts. Others may or may not be fooled. We’re never truly hiding the facts from ourselves either. We’re just trying to do a good cover up job.

We turn out to be just as silly hiding our sin, or our shame, or our weaknesses. As silly as a child hiding her eyes all while trying to act normal and rested. Shame fills us with fear. Fear makes us hide. Then we are prisoner to ourselves. It’s so interesting that perfect love casts out fear, sets us free. Transparency is the cure for shame. How strange this truth is. The truth sets us free. This is most often counter-intuitive. I think that’s why, without God’s help, we avoid it.

Look what God says:

Jeremiah 23:24 Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?" declares the Lord. "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" declares the Lord.

Why are you hiding your eyes? Why are you concealing the truth for others and yourself, when you could be free?  What specifically are the places you're hiding?

©2007

Lisa DeLay