We played a game we called Freeze-tag on hot summer evenings. There were a dozen or so of us kids in the neighborhood. Someone was IT and if they could catch you, you had to pretend to be frozen and stop and stay in the exact position you were in when touched. Someone else could free you so the person who was IT had quite a chore in getting everyone frozen.
On one such evening I narrowly escaped the reaching arm of the one designated as IT; but the necessary quick jerking turn I maneuvered in order to slip by left me staring down on a large bicycle laying flat on the ground. Not quite prepared to run up on it like that, I nevertheless attempted to leap over it. I was barefoot so I made sure to keep my feet well out in front of me. I fixated my expanding eye balls on the axel that protruded a good inch beyond the bolt that held the wheel on. I came down right on that bolt as if it were a seat with a painted target on it and my bottom centered in on it like I planned to sit down. Plunk! Ouch!
Well, I decided the best course of action was to ignore the pain and blood and continue the game. I continued this plan of action by deciding I did not need to mention it to Mom. After all I had a very poor view of the wound. A couple days later it could no longer remain a secret and the medical prognosis was stitches.
Some efforts toward secrecy are misguided. Jeremiah, one of the Bible preachers, asked his mischievous audience a couple questions that God instructed him to convey, “Can a person hide in secret places where I cannot see him?” “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? ” (23:24). It is humorous in a tragic kind of way when the created try to keep secrets from the Creator. This kind of foolish enterprise is as misguided as a child hiding a serious wound from his parents. Blood stains on jeans, bloody wash cloths, or a peculiar kind of walking while favoring one hip over the other will always give your secret away. When Jonah decided to take a trip on a ship to a location outside the jurisdiction of the heavenly council, he got into the same kind of conniption causing condition.
Sometimes keeping a misguided secret hurts other people more that it hurts you. Another Bible preacher, Paul, wrote this, “I know both how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content — whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:12-13). This is pretty good information to share with others. I would not want to keep this a secret. The source of true contentment is knowledge that many are seeking to know. Don’t keep it a secret.
Paul spoke often of God’s plan to deliver people from death and the perilous acts people do to bring it on themselves. He called this plan a mystery and referred to it as having been hidden for ages. He saw himself as one of God’s spokesman to finally reveal this secret so the world could benefit from knowledge of it.. He wrote that, “God wanted to make known among the nations the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26-27) and he often asked for prayer that God would give him the right words with which to persuade people to believe it (Ephesians 6:19; Colossians 4:3). Paul knew that it was misguided to keep this mystery a secret. We are also ambassadors for Christ with the purpose of delivering the message that reveals the secret of the mystery of the Gospel so that everyone can profit from the hope of eternal life (2 Corinthians 5:19-21). Don’t keep it a secret.
Stephen Williams