Secrets
From the Series—M6
January 9, 2004This evotional begins a new series titled M6.
Johari’s Window
If you’ve studied counseling psychology you’re probably familiar with what is known as Johari’s window. It’s a fascinating matrix on the human personality. Let me briefly describe the four quadrants.
The first quadrant is image. It consists of those things you know about you and others know about you. It is who you are in public. It’s what everybody knows about you. It’s how you present yourself to the world.
The second quadrant is secrets. It consists of those things you know about you but others don’t know about you. It is who you are in private. It’s what nobody knows about you besides you. It’s how you hide yourself from the world.
The third quadrant is blindspots. It consists of those things others know about you but you don’t know about you. This is where we need people in our lives who speak the truth in love —people who confront us. And this is where were need people in our lives who see our potential —people who encourage us.
And the fourth quadrant can be labeled the unconscious or the unknown. It consists of those things you don’t know about you and others don’t know about you. This is where the Holy Spirit plays a vital role in our lives. If you really want to get to know yourself, you need to get to know God because God knows more about you than you know about you. St. Teresa of Avila said it this way. “As I see it, we shall never succeed in knowing ourselves unless we seek to know God. ”
It’s interesting to read Matthew 6 with this filter in mind. Matthew 6 has everything to do with quadrant 1 and quadrant 2. It’s really about being less concerned with quadrant 1— our image —and more concerned with quadrant 2— our secrets.
Guilty Secrets
A few weeks ago I read an interesting anecdote about the English poet John Donne. Donne was brilliant. He went to Oxford when he was eight years-old. He was considered one of the greatest metaphysical poets of all time. And he served as dean of St. Paul’s cathedral in London. Donne was successful in every sense of the word, but he also lived in a constant state of fear. Here’s why: John Donne had a secret. Before his conversion he had written some blasphemous and obscene poetry to the woman he had secretly married. He lived his entire life in constant fear that someone would discover his deep dark secret.
F.W. Boreham said, “There is nothing in the solar system so isolating as a secret, and especially as a guilty secret. A man with a guilty secret feels lonely in the densest crowd.”
When we hear the word “secret” I think it conjures up a negative image for many of us. We think of “guilty secrets” as Boreham called them. And Scripture has lots of say about guilty secrets. II Corinthians 4:2 says, “We have renounced our secret and shameful ways.” Some of us need to do that as we start a new year. But I love Matthew 6 because it flips the coin and takes a positive angle on secrets. It’s not about renouncing guilty secrets. It’s about accumulating godly secrets.
Approval Addiction
Matthew 6:1 says, “Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them.” The Message says, “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it.”
Can we just be brutally honest? Most of us, when we do something good, look out of the corner of our eye to make sure someone is watching us. That’s human nature. When we do something good we want every ounce of credit.
Have you ever been in a conversation with a group of friends or colleagues and you’re talking about a great idea and it was your idea but no one acknowledges that it was your idea? Or worse yet, it was your idea but someone else sort of takes credit for it. Is it just me or is that not one of the toughest situations to remain silent? Why? Because when we do something good we want every ounce of credit. We don’t mind someone giving us more credit than we deserve, but most of us can’t handle getting less credit than we deserve. We crave credit.
I think a lot of us are what John Ortberg calls “approval addicts.” We’re addicted to the approval of others. And it may not be as frowned upon as other addictions, but it can be just as debilitating. Some of you live in bondage to what others think of you. You are at the mercy of other people’s opinions! Ortberg says, “Vast amounts of human behavior, though painstakingly disguised, are simply attempts at showing off. We want to impress other people without letting on that we’re trying to impress them.” A.W. Tozer said it this way. “There is hardly a man or woman who dares to be just what he or she is without doctoring up the impression.”
Image
A few years ago, the Pulitzer-Prize winning editorialist Meg Greenfield wrote a fascinating book titled Washington. I’m not sure anybody knew the psyche of Washington as well as Meg Greenfield did.
In the book, she compares Washington with High School and it’s a fascinating analogy. She says, “High school is the time when people first contrive to have an image…It is an attempt to fabricate a whole second persona for public consumption ….Life inside the image requires continuous care, feeding and, above all, protection. That is the worst of it. It’s like never being able to get undressed….We are, most of us, much of the time, in disguise. We present ourselves as we think we are meant to be.” She adds, “In Washington this is greatly in excess of the ordinary hypocrisies that exist everywhere else.”
I’m not sure 21 st century Washington is much different than 1st century Jerusalem. In Matthew 23:5, Jesus described the Pharisees this way. “Everything they do is done for men to see.” They turned their religious acts in photo ops and press conferences. I can summarize the religiosity of the Pharisees in three words— image was everything. All they cared about was the first quadrant— how they were perceived by others.
I think this passage gets to the heart of human nature. All of us engage in some degree of image management. It’s natural for us to put our best foot forward. And that’s ok. But there is a fine line between putting our best foot forward and doing what we do for the praise of man. I think Matthew 6 is the antidote to the approval addiction. Jesus talks about an ancient spiritual disciple that is often ignored or overlooked in our culture of credit. It is the discipline of secrecy.
The Discipline of Secrecy
Matthew 6:2 says, “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men, I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
In 280 AD, a boy named Nicholas was born in Patara, Asia Minor. He lost both of his parents to an epidemic when he was a child, but not before they have him the gift of faith. Nicholas grew up to become the Bishop of Myra.
Over the years, stories of his generosity became legend —how he would beg for money for the poor, how he would give dowries to poor girls so they could get married. But the story that was most often repeated is how Nicholas would don a disguise, secretly go out at strange hours, and anonymously give gifts to poor children.
Nicholas died in 314 AD, but his legend didn’t. In 1823, the poet Clement Moore gave him a red nose and eight tiny Reindeer. In 1866 Thomas Nast, the illustrationist, made him big and fat and gave him a red suit trimmed with fur. Over the years we’ve added elves and a toy factory at the North Pole. But if you can look past the historical revisions, you’ll discover that there really was an Old Saint Nick and his anonymous giving embodies what Matthew 6 is all about.
Secret Gifts
I know that Christmas has come and gone, but here’s your assignment this week: do something for someone without anyone knowing it.
Here’s what I think. You can memorize Matthew 6 and that’d be great. You can study Matthew 6 in the original Greek language and that’d be great. But here’s the bottom line. In the Hebrew way of thinking, there is no distinction between knowing and doing. Doing is knowing and knowing is doing.
I think we can study a passage like this until Jesus returns or we can just do what it says. So I want you to ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. I’m not sure what you should do or who you should do it for. But I want you to practice the discipline of secrecy by doing something for somebody without anybody knowing.
A few months ago I walked into the office early one morning when the lights were off and my head bumped into something. It was a note hanging from the ceiling. I turned the lights on and the third place was immaculate—which is not normal. I went into the storage room and someone had actually organized the bookshelves in there. And to top it off they left food and flowers for the staff. I have no idea who did it. It was an anonymous blessing. And the anonymity made it even more meaningful.
There is something about secrecy that takes giving to a whole other level. I think secret gifts are the purest form of giving because you don’t do what you do for the applause of men. You do it for God.
So get creative. Turn it into a game. If you have a family, involve your children in the process. Think about it. Pray about it. Then do something for somebody without anybody knowing it.
Secret Places
Matthew 6:5 says, “And now about prayer. When you pray don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publically on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I assure you, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly. Then your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.”
I think one of the dangers we face is doing what we do for public consumption. We “act the part.” I remember struggling with this in high school and college. You can raise your hands higher than anyone else during worship and you can stay at the altar longer than anyone else, but if your motives are wrong it doesn’t make a difference. I think sometimes we turn spirituality into a competition—we can sing louder or pray louder and sound smarter—instead of genuinely seeking God. It almost becomes a religious game.
The way to avoid that is to practice the disciple of secrecy. If you don’t get anything else out of this evotional, here is what I want you to do. Find a secret place—a place where you can go and be alone with God.
I love The Message translation of Matthew 6:5. “Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God.”
Secret Fasts
In the struggle against approval addiction, Jesus gives one more prescription. Matthew 6:16 says, “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
I think one of the best things you could do at the beginning of this New Year is a secret fast. Don’t tell anybody about it. It may be food. It may be TV. It may be caffeine. I don’t think it matters what you give up. Just give something up for a designated period of time and devote that time to God.
No Credit
This is one of those messages and one of those passages that isn’t real complicated. I don’t think it takes a whole lot of study to understand it. Just do it. Here’s your assignment: give a secret gift, pray a secret prayer, and do a secret fast.
Harry Truman said, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” I think that has spiritual application. Can you imagine what would happen if everybody reading this evotional put Matthew 6 into practice? Let’s go for it.