day no. 12,825: the last mark of intimacy is to confide secret joys‏

Oz dropped this insight on me this AM.

 

The secret (or “friendship” in the RSV rendering.) of the Lord is with them that fear Him. —Psalm 25:14

 

What is the sign of a friend? That he tells you secret sorrows? No, that he tells you secret joys. Many will confide to you their secret sorrows, but the last mark of intimacy is to confide secret joys.

 

There are any number of things we keep secret for any number of reasons.

 

We keep secret the shameful things that have been done to us because we feel that they reflect upon us. We feel ashamed of what was done to us. Sin convinces you that the degree to which you have been disgraced is the degree to which you are distanced from grace. This is a heinous lie and strategy of Satan to destroy people by focusing their attentions on what has been done to them rather than what has been done for them by Jesus.

 

We keep secret the shameful things we desire because we know they reflect upon us. We resist defining ourselves as “the type” of person who would want to do that. We are not a pervert; we are a regular guy who occasionally watches pornography.

 

But not just overt sinfulness do we keep secret.

 

We also hide and protect that which we desire that opens us up to intense vulnerability. Talking to your spouse about sex and what you like and dislike in any detail is an uncomfortable conversation. There is then difficulty even in the safest of environments. It is not the safety of the situation that solely dictates our surrender. Even in safety, it takes us a while to volunteer our deepest desires.

 

Take a moment to reflect upon the people in your life who know the deepest and darkest about you. Now take a moment to consider who in your life knows the deepest and most desirous about you. I am guessing the first qualifier reduced people in your life considerably. I am also guessing that Oz was right and that the second qualifier reduced the people in your life to what you would consider your innermost circle. I suspect that there is not a person who knows your deepest desires who does not also know your deepest darkness.

 

Either in dark or desire, these confessions produce intimacy and in Christ, they produce freedom to live before Him unshackled from any weight to constrain the joy we have before Him in forgiveness, redemption and sanctification. We should talk about what we’ve done, what’s been done to us and what we wish to do and we should daily find ourselves finding these more covered and hidden in Christ unto our eternal life to the fullest both here and now and forever