Can I share a Secret?

"Can you keep a secret?” “Don’t tell anyone else.” “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.”  Whether it is personal, business, or public sector; it’s no secret, that we live in a society framed on confidential information.  There are business secrets, criminal investigations, national security matters, and grandma’s secret cookie ingredient.  Yet while secrets have their place, they have also caused innumerable arguments, strife, and broken relationships.  Besides recognizing the destructive pattern of secrets, we may also be able to heal or avoid some of the effects if we examine some sources of secrets and what Christ has taught us.

The Bible tells us we made it only a few verses before secrets entered creation.  Satan caused Eve to doubt God and sin ensued.  The secret was not sin but breaking the trust of God caused the sin.  Trust is one of the largest reasons for the existence of secrets.  We use secrets to prevent sharing info with those we lack trust in, often because we have been hurt.  Sometimes we take this too far and keep everything secret.  Keeping secrets prevents true relationships because they require trust.  Trust allows someone the opportunity to hurt us, but also the opportunity to help us. 

One of the secrets that we try to keep the closest is that we are not enough.  It is actually a shared secret amongst us all, but we still try to hide it.  We use busyness, arrogance, smoke and mirrors, and a host of other methods to hide our need for help from others.  When we cannot hide our own need of help, we turn to shaming others for their own needing help.  Our own shame eats away at us, and has helped produce a host of problems in society including loneliness, depression, addictions, dependencies, and health issues as extensions of each of those problems.

Jesus never intended us to hurt like this.  First, he wants us to ask him for help with our sin problems instead of feeling the shame of it.  He also did not leave us alone, because he knew we would need help.  Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit, part of himself to comfort us.  He also left us, as part of a church which he called the body of Christ.  In this brilliant illustration we recognize that no single part of the body can survive without many of the others. 

Where do you reside with truth and vulnerability?  Have you acknowledged your needs, or are you fighting to keep people at arm’s length, so they do not see your weaknesses? Recognize that Christ came to help and seek where he can shine some light into your soul, by acknowledging your needs.

Sum of our Decisions

Photo by Alphacolor on Unsplash - Our community is made up by people, who make decisions, the real building blocks of community.

Anyone who has paid attention to my page recently, knows I have been reading the book “The Man in the Mirror” by Patrick Morley.  The section I just read refers to decision making, and wow it was so good I wanted to share some takeaways. 

   We all do exactly what we decide to do; we are the sum of our decisions. As hard as we try to make excuses, where we are physically, financially, morally, mentally, and relationally are functions of our decisions.  Those living under freedom-based governments largely can change our circumstances based on decisions.  I realize there are outside influences (family, culture, community) that will heavily influence some opportunities, but there are very few decisions which don’t involve options. The choice of these options compounded over our lifetime of decisions result in our current position.

   Moral or Priority Obviously every decision doesn’t have the same goal or weight to it, but it pretty cleanly comes down to choices of either morals or priorities.  Moral decisions are either right or wrong, and priority decisions are between right and right.  Most of our choices allocating money and time/ talents come down to priority questions.  The laws and teachings of the Bible are an excellent resource when it comes to moral questions.  A struggle with priority questions is that all decisions are morally right, but we are choosing between good, better, and best, with opportunity costs associated with each choice.  If we invest certain hours in our job, we can’t invest them in our family or church.  Society will often portray priority decisions as right and wrong, when in fact it is a question of good and best (politics as an example.)

Jesus’ decision template:  When tempted by Satan, Jesus used these as a risk management guide:

Math 4:4 “Man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the Mouth of God.” – We should live by the Word of God.

Math 4:7 “It is also written, you should not tempt the Lord, your God” -We should not make foolish decisions where we need a miracle to be rescued.

Math 4:10 “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” – Avoid decisions that reduce your worship and service to God.

Consequences-spiritual and financial- We are spiritual beings and as has oft been said Time=Money.  A reminder how Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and (Money).”  Once it is made, a decision leads to consequences that we must live with.  And again, we are the sum of our decisions.