There is a lot that people don’t know about one another.  That’s not likely to change no matter how much each of us will ever be willing to share.  The sheer volume of data, combined with the emotional energy it would take to process it, would eventually send the most compassionate listener on earth into information overload.  Still, we should always strive to be better at compassionate listening.

God has a real advantage here.  He knows everything already.  Our deepest darkest secrets are as plain and obvious to Him as the bright light of day.  We see this in the New Testament Greek word for “confess” (homologeo), which literally means something like “same say” or “say the same as another”.   When we confess anything to God, we are only admitting what He already knows to be true.  We are finally saying what He has been saying all along.

Which brings us to a deeper problem, namely that of keeping secrets from ourselves.  There can be areas within our lives or beings that we don’t fully understand.  Sometimes that’s a willful ignorance; sometimes it’s more inadvertent.  In either case, the effect is the same:  We don’t know what we’re like or who we are.  It’s not that we won’t admit our fatal flaws or inner conflicts; we don’t even fully understand them.  We’ve yet to accurately identify these concealed culprits that hold back our personal and spiritual growth.

What a blessing to have an all-knowing Helper – a loving know-it-all who truly knows it all!  David came to grips with his self-ignorance and it led him to this useful, yet beautiful, prayer:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties; 
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.”
          – Psalms 139:23-24 (NKJV)

Let’s follow his example by praying it, letting the Lord reveal our secrets to ourselves.