Stop Hiding

Stop Hiding

Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the LORD has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!

Psalm 32:1-2

One thing God never does is build on a weak foundation. If you are serious about knowing more peace in your life, you will have to be honest—with God, yourself, and others. It may be painful at times. But it will also be freeing and life giving, because honesty can open a door to God’s grace that may well transform your life. That’s what happened to a man by the name of John Van Sloten. Here’s how his story begins: “For the most part [I] thought I understood the whole God thing: be good, attend services, learn your catechism, help out a bit, and most important, hide your dark side. . . .

“I was living a developer’s life—in the worst sense of the word. I was a nasty, arrogant deal maker. . . . Once, I was told, I was so hard on an electrical engineer that he ended up having a mental breakdown. This was what a developer needed to be, I thought.

“My mind,” he confesses, “was constantly engrossed with my net worth. All I ever thought about was the next deal, the next car, the next house, and, sadly, even the next wife.”

Then came a moment of extraordinary honesty in which he told a pastor friend everything that was going on in his heart. Instead of feeling ashamed and crushed by his guilt, he felt strangely exhilarated, realizing that someone was looking straight through him, aware of everything he had done, and yet not holding it against him. “I felt completely judged and convicted,” he says, “and at the same time forgiven and freed. . . . The love that I felt in that moment was so beautifully merciful, so powerfully gracious, so numinously beyond anything I had ever known.”^a

Van Sloten’s choice of words is interesting. He said that once he was honest about his failings, he began to feel whole and reintegrated. The meaning of shalom, of course, is “wholeness”—God putting back together what has been ripped apart by sin. The first step is confession. The next step is peace.

Lord, I want to stop hiding and let my life be exposed to the light of your presence. Heal me and help me and make me whole, I pray.

^a John Van Sloten, The Day Metallica Came to Church: Searching for the Everywhere God in Everything (Grand Rapids, MI: Faith Alive, 2010), 33–35.