Hiding - Impossible in the Game of Life

Do you know, it happens quite regularly—seemingly daily—with me at least. It’s reason to apologise for faux pas’ of pride or a lack, otherwise, of socially situational awareness.

We could inflict a self-condemnatory chastening upon ourselves—and often we do!­—but it’s best to simply accept, we cannot hide the frailties of the heart around here; wherever our ‘around here’s’ are.

They Know Us Only Too Well

Our friends, family, peers, managers, pastors and colleagues know us seemingly back-to-front; and still they love and accept us for who we are... amazing. And in this, they’re mirroring—albeit less perfectly—the love of God.

This reminds us of something very important; something to be inherently aware of:

If we cannot hide from others or God, why do we hide from ourselves?

~And, positively~

Is this an invocation to freedom? Do we, by this fact, simply and humbly accept that we will from time to time, in doing the wrong thing, fall short and embarrass ourselves?

It has happened. It does happen. It will happen... again.

A Solemn, Divine Promise

The golden promise of God, despite this chiding reality, is he will resurrect us each and every time—each moment—we give way to the bout of embarrassment; swapping it for surrender, falling into line with the will and flow of the God of eternity.

This heavenly escape clause involves a ‘cooling off period,’ where we have time to reconcile the losses of pride, to recover our name—but only via humility; to admit we were wrong.

Ironically, the way to purity is going through our now fleeting sin, i.e. our dealing appropriately with it—this with all abandon. A more pure soul is not perfect; they’re just easily and instantaneously conformed to God’s will via good ole fashioned repentance.

They’ve pleasantly developed the habit of obedience.

Declare and Do Not (Self) Delude

Without being fools in the way we do it, we ought to more fully declare our faults and indiscretions, by doing it forthrightly in the moment, and then moving quickly on.

This never seems to detract from our credibility; it only seems to enhance it.

If reparation is full, sincere and accepted we don’t wallow in it one micro-second longer than necessary, either interpersonally or within our inner heart or mind. When we don’t deal with our issues of fault—by denial—we drag out something that is best just simply dealt with.

Smashing our pride, over the coals of humility, through the authenticity of transparency is only momentarily painful—it requires a modicum of courage. Yet, it’s a superior pain to the lingering shame of being forever wrong—which is not our destiny... to remain self condemned.

This is something we’re all abundantly capable of.

Hiding is a hellish way of living life. It has more of death about it than life.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.