For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light. (Luke 8:17)
Many people believe this verse refers to individual acts and one’s personal behavior. There is some truth to this. However, these words from our Lord primarily refer to what motivates our personal behavior; the deepest interior part of ourselves as human persons. The desert experiences of our lives often have a way of revealing this deep interior.
Lent is a desert experience and can be a good time for us to come to grips with our own deeper selves. It is not only a time of trial, of wandering through the desert as Jesus did, it is also a time when we can ask the Lord to reveal our interior life to us.
This interior part of us is what will be revealed on that day when we stand before the Lord.
The thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. (Luke 2:35)
But why wait? Our Spiritual growth and maturity depend on our going through this process.
This revelation of our interior is not done for the Lord’s benefit; He already knows everything about us. And the verse above is not talking about what will be revealed to others about us. This is between us and God.
These words refer to the deepest and most hidden part of what must be revealed to us about ourselves.
In the Book of Acts, when the Christian community witnessed the arrival of the Holy Spirit, it was a clear sign the world would need to listen to a message that would burn in their hearts.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. (Acts 2:3)
These tongues of fire resting on the Apostles confirmed them in their prophetic mission; they were to go forth and preach the Gospel to all nations. The flaming tongues would speak to each of them individually and call them to deeper conversion.
But these tongues of fire also represented the truth that must be spoken to a fallen world, and to individual hearts, our hearts.
And when he comes, He will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment. (John 16:8)
Part of the message of the Gospel, the part that cannot be hidden from us, is that we are all wounded by sin. We may not know this, or we may not think about it very often, but that does not diminish its truth. The Lord, however, is not as concerned about our sin as He is about the wounds they have left behind.
Having our interior woundedness revealed to us can be very difficult, but it is the only way to bring about the healing we need.
This spiritual-medical procedure is preceded by the stripping away of the exterior defenses we may have built up throughout our lives. A person never really knows him or herself fully until the support structures he or she have come to rely on are removed, or at least compromised to the point where one can no longer trust them.
Obvious examples of this include the deterioration of our health, loss of our financial security, the loss of our reputation, loss of a loved one or a break in our relationships with others. It can also happen when we are placed under great strain, or when the perceptions of the world that we have come to rely on are suddenly shattered. In these desert experiences, we may discover we are far different persons than who we thought we were.
The two greatest support structures we build against life’s trials are our misperception of ourselves and our misconceptions about who God really is, and the ways He works with us.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways. (Isaiah 55:8)
But it is precisely when these distorted perceptions begin to break down, when we discover the chinks in the armor of our self-image and our mistaken projections we have placed on God, that we can actually begin to experience the healing of our interior wounds.
This is a difficult spiritual intervention, but it is not a time to lose heart. This spiritual procedure is precisely what the Lord is asking of us; we must approach Him with a genuine desire to have our wounds healed. He desires even more than we do to have our hearts made pure and our lives restored. But like a good surgeon, He needs our permission.
If we give it, we will come to experience real healing in our lives. This is what the Lord Himself promised.
For I will restore health to you,
and your wounds I will heal,
says the LORD (Jeremiah 30:17)
Copyright © 2024, Deacon Mark Danis
Image credit: “Christ in the Wilderness,” Ivan Kramskoy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, modified in Adobe Photoshop