satan is in the secrecy...

Lately I've been very aware of secrecy. Both in good ways...

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God. But the things that are made known belong to us and to our children forever, so we may obey all the words of this Law." Deuteronomy 29:29

"Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered." Proverbs 11:13

But also in bad ways...

“So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10: 26-28

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Psalm 90:8

Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, "Who sees us? Who will know?" You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!... Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing?"  Isaiah 29:15-16

I've found myself on both sides of secrecy lately. I've felt the palpable tugging of God to come into the secret place with Him...to do some repenting and dealing and hard work with His Spirit. I've also felt the weight of secrecy in areas of my soul where it should not be...and I believe the Enemy thrives there.

What is secrecy?

:  the condition of being hidden or concealed

:  the habit or practice of keeping secrets or maintaining privacy or concealment

Some characteristics of unhealthy secrecy:

Darkness: when carrying unhealthy secrecy in our lives, there is palatable darkness. By definition darkness is: the partial or total absence of light. When we are holding unhealthy secrecy, there is surely darkness in that area. We can't see clearly, we fumble and stumble around and we walk in uncertainty. If we stay here too long, we eventually give up looking for the light switch and instead just wait for our eyes to become accustomed to the dark. This isn't the healthy life in the secret place that God calls us to. It's a place for the Enemy to lurk undetected and hidden under the cover of darkness.

Paranoia: I realize about myself that when I'm carrying unhealthy secrecy, I begin to experience paranoia. Paranoia is: a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. Sound familiar? "Why are people against me?" "Everyone is talking about me!" "God must have HUGE plans for me because I'm being relentlessly persecuted...I mean, I'm practically the apostle Paul!" Yeah, paranoia is a sure sign that the secrecy we're carrying is eroding our true identity as secure, approved and beloved children of the King. Instead, we either play the victim or over-estimate our importance. The Enemy will take either opportunity to drag us off course and get us lost in the woods of paranoia.

Posing: We're all familiar with posers. You know, that person that you can quickly say: "oh man, what a poser!" about? Well I'm pretty convinced that we as believers have become MASTERS of posing. Ours is just way more subtle. Posing is: to assume a particular attitude or position in order to be photographed, painted, or drawn. Does that hit close to home for anybody? I'm so aware that an unhealthy amount of secrecy has creeped in when I feel the pressure to pose. On social media, at church, at work, for the other moms at school, for my kids, my friends, even my husband. I begin to have a literal tug-of-war between what I think people need to see from me and what I'm really feeling. I'm carrying secrecy and the inauthentic result is a need to pose...after all, I gotta look good, right? And the Enemy LOVES to get me all caught up in how I appear to the world around me. After all, if I'm worried about them, I certainly won't have room to be worried about how I appear to Jesus.

Secrecy manifests itself in many forms:

• sins we are aware of but have not taken the time before God to deal with. 
• knowledge we become aware of and feel responsible to keep to ourselves. 
• knowledge others give us and then make us responsible to keep to ourselves.  
• circumstances or situations that occur and bring with them shame or embarrassment.  
• long past wounds or wrongs that pop up from the past to taunt us.

The goal of the Enemy is stealing, killing and destroying. He wants us in darkness...isolated, alone, paranoid and posing. Satan is in the secrecy. There is much that scripture has to say about the virtues of controlling our tongues, not breaking confidences and retreating to the secret place with God. This isn't that.

Unhealthy secrecy creeps into our lives when someone puts something on us that isn't ours to carry. Terrible or painful situations that happen to us aren't meant to be kept in secret and darkness. They're burdens intended to be shared with trusted counsel and Godly friends or mentors that can help us navigate all that confusing darkness and be on the road to freedom.

Sins that we're delaying repentance from will only serve to heighten the posing that is characteristic of a person pretending to be someone they're not. Bringing our sins into the open before God and asking Him to cleanse and purify us sheds LIGHT in an otherwise dark, dank place. All darkness flees in the presence of light. Bring it into the open before Him!

Knowledge is a funny thing. In fact, some would say knowledge is power. The funny thing about knowledge is that once you know something, you can't un-know it. Be very careful about what you know. Be very protective of what people give you to know. Once you know it, it's very hard not to carry it. Once you're carrying it, it's very hard not to feel responsible for it. Once you feel responsible for it, it's very hard not to act on it. Suddenly, something that we once didn't know is something we feel the need to act on. Sometimes this is good...other times, it's very, very bad.

Recently, I'm painfully aware that I have to beware of saying "I probably shouldn't say this, but..." and I'm equally leery of "please don't tell anyone this..." These are both the first sign that I should take a beat before anything else comes out of my mouth. You and I should have a handful of safe, godly friends in similar as well as differing seasons of life who are peers and also older and wiser. These are the appropriate places for the wise counsel mentioned earlier. Beyond that, it's a dicey game to start playing "no one really knows this but..." and the Enemy has a field day in all the secrecy. Knowledge can be power, but in all the wrong ways...

Past wounds and wrongs that continue to crop up AFTER they've been dealt with before God are one of the Enemy's primary ways to accuse us. It's a ploy to have us retreat into secrecy and guilt by giving back ground that was already taken in victory. We have to stand in truth and reclaim the ground that's already been covered by the blood of Jesus. Satan is at work in the dark, the shame and the secrecy. Those are unfruitful works of darkness and they are no match for the light and freedom found in Christ. There is now therefore NO condemnation, so don't give the Enemy any dark places to move in and get comfortable.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

There is no freedom in unhealthy secrecy...let's pray and ask God to expose areas where we may be carrying what isn't ours to carry, revisiting what's already been taken or shouldering burdens intended to be shared with another sibling in Christ. Satan is in the unhealthy secrecy.

Jesus, however, is in the secret places of our souls and invites us to let Him have free reign there. Retreating into the secret place with Christ is a very safe and secure place indeed.

Let's choose the secret place of Christ over the unhealthy secrecy the Enemy would have us bound up in. There's much freedom to be found there.

"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty." Psalm 91:1


















 

the piles at the end of the bed...

I am a very ordered and orderly person. I love to have everything just so. There's a way that the pillows go on the couch, a way that the coffee table must be arranged, a way that a bed is made and how a shirt is folded. I like my nails with no chips in the polish, my hair with everything flat ironed correctly and you'll probably never see me accomplishing the "messy" look.

Over the last little while, however, an interesting phenomenon has been occurring. Piles have been growing at the end of my bed. They've been out of control and have increased their taunting of me with each sunrise and sunset. Late this afternoon, I had all that I could take of them and determined to get them cleaned up. I was in a prime place to listen as God began to use the mundane act of cleaning to do some sovereign acts of teaching. In the spirit of vulnerability, here's a before pic of the piles at the end of the bed.

What are the contents of the piles? Oh, the usual suspects...clothes, scarves, socks, shoes, more shoes, and empty Target bags (which had previously contained shoes). Not to be outdone, the bedside table joined in with half empty water glasses, chapstick, kleenex, wrappers, receipts and other junk, the floor beside the closet held an overflowing suitcase from a trip more than a week ago and an assortment of legos, headbands and other things that belong to the little people who live with me. Serious. Piles.

Make no mistake, though. If you came over to my house, you'd NEVER see these piles. My house is pretty neat at all times. Even when it's not, it's neater than most houses out there. If you walked into my house on any given evening, you'd be greeted with candles, ambient lighting and everything in it's place. This happens because I make sure it happens. And every night before bed, everything that's been somehow disturbed throughout the day returns once again to its resting place. So why won't you see the piles at the end of the bed when you come over? Because I'll close the master bedroom door, that's why.

Today, as I was cleaning, I was thinking...

The bedroom and more specifically, the bed, is a place of REST. No matter what our day has held or how long it takes us to get there, at some point we'll lay our heads down and attempt rest. In that same place. Night after night. Sometimes tossing, sometimes turning but always seeking...rest. So why in the world is the area around my place of rest in such cluttered disarray? Why is this supposed place of rest the first place that is undone and in disorder? The answers to these and other questions I came upon while cleaning are ugly but important.

My bedroom represents my heart and the bed, my soul. The deepest parts of me. Everything important to me is contained here. Identity, longings, wounds, worship, fears, sorrows, songs in the night and joy in the morning...these all reside in this deepest part...the secret place. In fact, they are who I am. Who I really am. Why have I let who I really am get so cluttered with all this uninvited junk?

For me, the answer is in the order. I am tending to things in the wrong order. Jeffrey knew early in our marriage that if the house was messy, then it would be a good bet that before long, I would be messy. Disorder on the outside would often equate to disorder on the inside. Knowing this, why does the clutter grow around my soul at times while most around me are oblivious to the real state of me? That's an easy one. They're only seeing what I let them see.

I keep the visible areas of my life very well in order. I'm showing up to work, I'm doing my best at my job, I've got clean, fed and well-behaved children, Jeffrey and I present a united front, I smile at the right times, cry at the right things and show up at all the right places. My twitter is appropriately spiritual without being too heavy or out of touch with reality. I keep up with sports and avoid politics. I can hold easy conversations about the latest and greatest in TV shows, food or football. I return text messages and if you're lucky, phone calls. My instagram is littered with pictures of kids, pets and playfulness. Everything is in ORDER...or so it would appear.

If I'm not very intentional about that secret place, things begin to build up there. Before I know it, there's a vast contrast between my media face and my secret place. Most people will never know that. I'll just close the door so no one can see it. The sneaky thing about the clutter that builds up in the secret place is that most of it doesn't even belong there.

Clothes and shoes in a pile = things we need, but need to have cleaned.
I don't need to throw the clothes out...just get them washed. The same goes for my attitudes, actions, motives, thoughts and desires. I need them, they're God given. But when not consistently surrendered, they begin to pile up and get dirty. A daily inventory, surrendered and washed before God and under the control of the Holy Spirit is a necessity. Dealing with things as they come, rather than after they pile up, will lead to a lot less angst and deep cleaning later.

Legos and headbands = other people's problems.
The Legos aren't mine, they're Jack's...and they need to be put OUTSIDE my room for him to deal with. Same with the headbands. They may look interesting, I may even be able to relate to them, but the fact remains...they're Ali's, not mine. Other people's issues and problems have no place in your heart and soul either. Can we agree that we have enough clutter on our own without adding to it with the clutter of others? If it's not yours, if God hasn't asked you to carry it, then set it outside the door of your heart and leave it there. Being able to relate to it doesn't mean it's yours to clean up.

Half empty water glasses = things that may have been fine once but now need to be dumped out.
Water glasses don't belong on the bedside table night after night...the water gets less and less pure the longer it's there. The same goes for other junk we keep going over and over and over long after we should have processed it and let it go. Take the glasses back to the kitchen where they belong. But first, pour the water out before carrying them through the house. Let's face it...nobody wants our problems splashing all over them as we try to get rid of them.

Suitcases full of clothes = things that need to be processed through and put in their place.
Unpacked baggage only adds to the clutter. Circumstances and experiences come in all shapes and sizes. Some are long trips, others are merely an overnight...but all of them must be unpacked, sorted through, applied and put in their place. The quicker baggage is put away, the less likely we are to trip over it on our way somewhere else.

Empty Target bags = things we need to get. rid. of.
Once the shoes have come out of the bag, the bag is just taking up space. It was the carrier for the shoes, but the shoes were the goal, not the bag. Once we've learned what God is trying to teach us through a painful time, it's important to keep the lesson and get rid of the rest. Circumstances, hurts, wounds, disappointments and other trials serve as carriers of what God wants to teach us. But don't let them lay around in your soul longer than necessary. Keep the lesson but throw out the hurts so the heart can heal.

I think I've had the order wrong a lot of the time. It's the secret place, the deepest part, that needs the most attention. If things are in order on the inside, things will likely be ordered on the outside. The seen will be a result of my attention to the unseen. This is the only way true authenticity is gained.

What order are you cleaning in?

Is there clutter building up in the unseen places of your soul?

Start purging...it's back-breaking and sweat-producing, but waiting at the end is the result we've longed for all along. Rest. Real Rest.

Thus says the LORD:”Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. - Jeremiah 6:16

“…Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-29

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe. I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.” Psalm 61:1

“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” Psalm 62:1-2

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16