I've Got A Secret

 Secret hiding place. Club.  Handshake.  Password.  Recipe.

Secrets.  When we're the subject, we hate them, but when we discover one, we're on top of the world.  Unlocked secrets bring forth treasures untold.  It's why we pry, poke, bait, and bribe.  Mysteries were meant to be solved, and secrets were meant to be shared.  Or were they?

For years, my family has been trying to unlock the secret of my chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I have promised to bequeath it to the most trustworthy child, but for now, it's in a vault.  I admit that a little intentional investigating could probably do the trick in reproducing it.  But if I'm being completely honest, I love that there's something I know that nobody else does.  It belongs only to me.  And of course that's the most selfish thing in the world!  I can only make and distribute the number of cookies proportional to my budget.  Flour, sugar, butter, and chocolate all cost money, and so the gift is severely limited by my personal purchasing power.

Sharing the recipe would allow unadulterated cookie joy to be multiplied across the population.  There's a teeny tiny part of me, though, that actually thinks no one else could do it proper justice.  They wouldn't beat the dough for the appropriate amount of time, their oven wouldn't be properly calibrated, they couldn't accurately manage the baking time, or they wouldn't use the correct chip ratio.  My secret would be wasted on them, and worse my reputation would be at stake.  The horror!

But of course that's not true.  Intellectually, I know that.  But I am irrational.  And so I keep this secret.

Every single person in the world is a compendium of secrets, and authentic friendships are rare.  Mistakenly, people assume that their secrets make them less valuable, not more.  I meet people who I really like, but our conversations are superficial.  All our interactions are an arms-length away.  "Don't get too close", they seem to say.  "You might not like what you see".  But the reality is that the opposite is true!  The more that is revealed to me, the more I long to discover.  Like my cookie recipe, they don't want to trust me with their secrets.  I might not do their hopes, fears, dreams, and loves true justice.  Authenticity is too risky!

A lot of people treat their secrets like Samson (from the Old Testament) treated his.  His secret was the source of his great strength.  When he revealed it, unfortunately, it was used against him, and ultimately led to his personal downfall.  That's the risk we take when we invite people to take a peek at the layers that make us who we are.  It's the secrets that make us special.   That make us genuine.  That make us vulnerable.

Judges 16:6:  So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."
Judges 16:16:  With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.
Judges 16:19:  Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him.  And his strength left him.
Judges 16:20:  Then she called, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!"  He awoke from his sleep and thought, "I'll go out as before and shake myself free."  But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

Tragically, Samson did not know that he had betrayed his calling.  He had permitted a Philistine woman to rob him of the sign of his special consecration to the Lord.  And the Lord was the ultimate source of Samson's strength.

We think if we tell our secrets, our friends will leave us.  Or worse God will leave us.  Our secret will be used against us-- mocked, twisted, and disclosed.

That's not the message of the New Testament.  Though there is a secret, it is beautiful and available to everyone.  As Christians, we're encouraged to tell the whole world about this great gift.  CHRIST IN US is the secret.  To squirrel it away would be a tragedy.  Like Samson's hair, CHRIST IN US is our strength.  But unlike Samson's hair, God's gracious gift cannot be taken away. 

I love Colossians 2:2-3:  "My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (emphasis mine).

I have some secrets, to be sure.  And as you already know, my most treasured is the secret chocolate chip cookie recipe.  It's legendary, and though it's not really that complicated, I know the secret is what makes them special.  That's why I would have to kill you if I typed it here now.

The secret of the New Testament is what makes us special, too.  For, "To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory."  (Colossians 1:27) Christ is in us, and he is full of wisdom and knowledge.  I wouldn't want to keep that to myself. I can't keep it to myself!  Surely, I've let God down.  Christ might be in me, but unfortunately I've got a lot of other junk in there, too.  One of the main ways God introduces himself to people that don't know him is through authentic relationships.  As my secrets come out, so hopefully does Christ.   If ever God felt like I wasn't worthy to represent him on this earth, he has never done anything but encourage me otherwise.  And I hope he will encourage you, too.  There's no sense in us all keeping all our juicy secrets to ourselves!