The Secret Places

“You delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” Psalm 51:6

You see those terms David used in the psalm? Inward being. Secret Heart.

Oof. The Deep Places. The inner layers of our souls. Down there, people don’t always know what lurks. We often avoid it ourselves. If we look too long or too hard, we may have to face it. Or, it may rise to the surface like a submerged beach ball ready to pop out from the water and ruin everything we think we have under control.

I’ve lived enough life to realize the secrets we humans carry. The secret pain, the secret burden, the secret sin, the secret expectations, the secret trauma, the secret desire, the secret shame, the secret fear, the secret habit. On and on it can go.

Those Secret Places hold Power. Much of it because they’re secret. Secret things don’t see the Light. Therefore, Light cannot influence it. Secret things cannot seek accountability and support, therefore their power stays intact and unchallenged. Secret things cannot seek correction or guidance, therefore its impact remains unilateral.

We trick ourselves to think its power is minimal.

But those Secret Places operate with secret influence. And that influence is great, whether we acknowledge it or not.

What we choose and what we avoid. Our responses and our reactions. Our triggers and our temptations. How we overcompensate and how we cover up.

All those things that we do openly in our lives. Even if others don’t realize the why behind it, the Secret Places are holding the reins in our lives.

Quietly. Covertly. Like the incognito tab of our internet browser.

The power isn’t just the secret itself. The power comes from our avoidance of recognizing what we have allowed in our lives because of it.

The secret expectations and secret failures, they shape our choices. Shape our self-worth.

The secret sin, influences our faith, our relationships, our testimony.

The secret trauma … oh that’s a hard one. The things we’ve been a victim to… things we had no control over … but it has shaped us. It’s very hard to be honest enough with ourselves to see what we have allowed to take root. Misconceptions. Compromise. Self-doubt. The compensations we shouldn’t have to carry.

But what if these secret places were to come into the Light? What if we stripped off the cover of night and revealed our weaknesses and hurts to God, to ourselves, to trusted friends? What if we held the secret next to the Truth to see how it compared? What if we invited accountability and outside perspectives to challenge the power of the Deep?

And what if we invited God into the Secret Place? See what wonderous things He could do there when given the opportunity.

What if we unlocked it?

This is why I love Psalm 51, when David bears open his soul. He cries out to God to inspect the deep places. To do surgery. To clean out the gunk. Because God delights in truth in the inward being. When His grace, His wisdom, His love, His grace, His holiness … is able to penetrate past all the superficial we present. When His light can tackle the darkness. Oh, that is the heart of God. That is where profound things happen.

“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me…Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow…. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51: 3, 7, 10