The burden of concealment

Achan hides his loot - Artist Unknown

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Ezekiel 5-8; Psalm 32

TO CHEW ON: "When I kept silent my bones grew old through my groaning all day long." Psalm 32:3


David writes Psalm 32 from a place of relief. He had covered a sin, then come clean and confessed it.  He contrasts the way it feels to be holding his secret with the relief of having confessed. Let's take a look at the effects of covering or concealing sin on David - Psalm 32:3,4:

"When I kept silent…

• "…my bones grew old…" - He felt a sense of fragility and weakness.

• "…through my groaning all day long." - He experienced day-long agony of spirit.

• "For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;" - God's presence felt heavy, not comforting.

• "My vitality was turned into the drought of summer" - he felt useless and unproductive, like a plant shrivels and grows weak without water.

A brief overview of others who practiced concealment in the Bible show more side effects of covering sin:

• Adam and Eve attempted to hide from God (Genesis 3:8), though it was and is impossible (Psalm 139:11; Luke 12:2; Revelation 6:16).

• Achan and Gehazi had to sneak around and hide their stolen treasures - Joshua 7:21; 2 Kings 5:24.

• Isaiah talks about permanent deep changes to the person who lives a life of concealment. He calls it becoming "warped" - Isaiah 47:10.

I don't know if you have ever refused to confess a known sin, but I have.  I can witness to how accurate David is in describing what it feels like.

Contrast those feelings with how everything changes for him following his confession:
He feels:

• a desire to be with God again - Psalm 32:6.

• security in God's presence -  Psalm 32:7.

• joy, expressed in singing and shouting - Psalm 32:7, 11.

• direction and purpose - Psalm 32:8.

• gratitude for God's mercy - Psalm 32:10.

If you are holding onto a secret sin thinking you can live like this indefinitely, stop kidding yourself. Expose your secret. Make it right with God and any person involved. Then watch the vitality and joy flow back into your relationship with God and others.

PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for David's vivid and accurate description of concealment. Help me to live my life clear and transparent before you and others. Amen.

PSALM TO PRAY: Psalm 32

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The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. - Used with permission.

God's glory brought down to earth

 Detail of "Transfiguration" by Raphael (1516-1520)

See the entire painting and read its history on Art and the Bible.

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Luke 9:21-36

TO CHEW ON: "Now it came to pass, about eight days after these sayings, that He took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray." Luke 9:28


Luke links Jesus' sobering words of Luke 9:23-27 (where He speaks of His death, the need for the disciples to face their own deaths daily, the Father being ashamed of those who are ashamed of Jesus and His words, and some disciples not seeing death till they see the kingdom of God) with Jesus' transfiguration. It's as if Luke is saying, With Jesus' pronouncements ringing in their ears the disciples experienced this (Luke 9:28 - 36).

How might the two be connected?

• The transfiguration conversation between Jesus, Moses and Elijah underlined the fact of Jesus' impending death - Luke 9:22,31. (My Bible's Harmony of the Gospels dates the transfiguration somewhere in the beginning to middle of AD 29, about a year before the crucifixion.)

• The disciples were given a taste of the glory Jesus referred to in Luke 9:26. The glory the disciples experienced was visible. Jesus' clothes became white and glistening. It was a glory of well-being. Peter wanted to stay in it and the disciples only became fearful as the cloud that eventually separated them from it overshadowed them - Luke 9:34. This experience gave them a foretaste of what it was like to be in God's penetrating, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-revealing presence—a place they would not want to enter with the shame of having denied Jesus and His words.

• God's words from the cloud ("This is My believed Son. Hear Him" - Luke 9:34) supported Jesus' claim of being on the side of His Father and the angels - Luke 9:26.

And then, kathunk! The voice was silent. The cloud lifted. They were alone with Jesus. I can imagine their thoughts: What just happened? Did it really happen? What does it mean? To their credit the puzzled disciples kept this experience to themselves for the time being.

Some takeaways from this story for me, for us...

1. God's  revelations, when He pulls back the curtain to show us glimpses of the divine, will line up with what He has said in other places, e.g. the teachings of the Bible.

2. We don't want to enter His presence ashamed because of our short-sighted fear of man.

3. It's okay to keep divine encounters to ourselves until we gain insight into what they mean.

PRAYER: Dear Jesus, help me to live in such a way that I can someday stand unashamed before You in all Your glory. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Shame and hiding

Eve and Adam - painting by Phillip Ratner

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Genesis 3:1-15

TO CHEW ON: "And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." Genesis 3:8

 Yesterday's reading with its idyllic scene of Adam and Eve in sweet companionship with each other and God is ripped apart by the entrance of sin. Adam and Eve's eating the fruit of the Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil tree did a lot more than set them in the direction of death. One thing that happened was an immediate urge to hide.

This urge grew out of guilt and shame.

[guilt: The fact or condition of having committed an offense, especially a willful violation of a legal or moral code,

shame: a painful sense of guilt or degradation caused by consciousness of guilt or of anything degrading, unworthy or immodest...a state or condition of regret, dishonour or disgrace."]

So they went from "naked and unashamed" (Genesis 2:25) to hiding their bodies from each other and hiding themselves from God.

Throughout the Bible we discover a similar urge to hide in the presence of guilt over having committed sin. It was often accompanied by drastic results which impacted more people than just the ones who sinned:

• Achan took spoil from Jericho, hid it in his tent and as a result 36 men were killed in the battle with Ai before he was discovered. Then he and his family paid the price (Joshua 7).

• Gehazi, Elisha's servant, tried to hide the fact that he had taken Naaman's gift, offered earlier to his boss. He ended up with leprosy (2 Kings 5:20-27).

• We smile at the irony of the Israelites secretly building "high places" for idol worship. "High places"! And they thought God couldn't see? (2 Kings 17:9).

David, whose hiding episode included adultery and murder, got it right when he asked, rhetorically in Psalm 139, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?" and answered, in effect, nowhere (Psalm 139:7-12).

I ask myself, am I keeping secrets from God? One sign that I may be is a reluctance to meet with Him (just like Adam and Eve). For I have found that when such is the case and we do get together, He invariably puts His finger on my supposed secret.

If we're not sure, we can pray the prayer David prayed at the end of Psalm 139:

"Search me, O God, and know my heart;

         Try me, and know my anxieties;

 And see if there is any wicked way in me,

         And lead me in the way everlasting."

If God exposes concealed sins, Psalm 32:5 is the perfect way to deal with them:

"I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.  Selah  

PRAYER: Dear God, please help me to realize the futility of trying to hide things from You. Help me to recognize "secret sins," to acknowledge and confess them, and to deal with any interpersonal fallout. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Shame and hiding

Eve and Adam - painting by Phillip Ratner

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Genesis 3:1-15

TO CHEW ON: "And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." Genesis 3:8

Adam and Eve in sweet companionship with each other and God  (Genesis 2:23-25) is ripped apart by sin. Adam and Eve's eating the fruit of the Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil tree did a lot more than set them in the direction of death. One thing that happened was an immediate urge to hide.

This urge grew out of guilt and shame.

[guilt: The fact or condition of having committed an offense, especially a willful violation of a legal or moral code,

shame: a painful sense of guilt or degradation caused by consciousness of guilt or of anything degrading, unworthy or immodest...a state or condition of regret, dishonour or disgrace."]

So they went from "naked and unashamed" (Genesis 2:25) to hiding their bodies from each other and hiding themselves from God.

Throughout the Bible we discover a similar urge to hide in the presence of guilt over having committed sin. It was often accompanied by drastic results which impacted more people than just the ones who sinned:

• Achan took spoil from Jericho, hid it in his tent and as a result 36 men were killed in the battle with Ai before he was discovered. Then he and his family paid the price (Joshua 7).

• Gehazi, Elisha's servant, tried to hide the fact that he had taken Naaman's gift, offered earlier to his boss. He ended up with leprosy (2 Kings 5:20-27).

• We smile at the irony of the Israelites secretly building "high places" for idol worship. "High places"! And they thought God couldn't see? (2 Kings 17:9).

David, whose hiding episode included adultery and murder, got it right when he asked, rhetorically in Psalm 139, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?" and answered, in effect, nowhere (Psalm 139:7-12).

I ask myself, am I keeping secrets from God? One sign that I am may be is a reluctance to meet with Him (just like Adam and Eve). For I have found that when such is the case and we do get together, He invariably puts His finger on my supposed secret.

If we're not sure, we can pray the prayer David prayed at the end of Psalm 139:

"Search me, O God, and know my heart;

         Try me, and know my anxieties;

 And see if there is any wicked way in me,

         And lead me in the way everlasting."

If God exposes concealed sins, Psalm 32:5 is the perfect way to deal with them:

"I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.  Selah  

PRAYER: Dear God, please help me to realize the futility of trying to hide things from You. Help me to recognize "secret sins," to acknowledge and confess them, and to deal with any interpersonal fallout. Amen.

MORE: Shame versus guilt
Mark Yarhouse in his book Homosexuality and the Christian, makes a distinction between guilt and shame:

"Guilt is about feeling bad for something you've done. Shame is about feeling bad for who you are" - p. 158.

Keeping that in mind, shame would be the appropriate response to humanity's (and thus our own) reluctance to appear before God caused by Adam and Eve's sin. But through belief in Jesus and His death on the cross, the shame of our inherent sinfulness is no longer necessary (see Revelation 3:18-20).

(From the archives)