Proverbs 27:5 -- On Openness

"Open rebuke is better than secret love."
Proverbs 27:5


This seems crazy to me in some ways... how could someone telling me I am wrong (what?!) or rejecting me be better than caring about me? I can't possibly know what everyone is thinking out there, but in general I'd rather have them like me than not, and at least on one level I would rather that the ones who don't like me *not* confront me, because that sounds scary, even though I am positive that many of them are absolutely in the right and deserve an apology.

However, since I also know that God is smarter than I am, I was thinking about the whole "all things which are hid must be revealed" (Mormon 5:8) idea, and I think the point is that openness and honesty are better than withholding information and deception. Even though we might not like it when people don't like us, at least it is honest information that we can face and deal with, rather than something hidden that we can't deal with. When it comes down to it, secret love isn't really any better than secret hatred, since neither of them can do any good, and both can fester and cause problems.

God keeps secrets, and so saying that we need to be honest doesn't mean that we need to blurt everything out to everyone right now. The Santa Claus secret can probably wait a few years, and of course some secret love is love that shouldn't be acted upon at all, including revealing its existence, but rather is something we should reveal only to God so we can talk with him about it and get his help in changing our hearts, for instance in cases where it could interfere with a marriage or is otherwise inappropriate.

Today, let's work on being open, and admitting our secrets, at least to God, rather than letting them grow in our imaginations and command more mental real estate than they need. God will eventually reveal all secrets, including ours, so let's make sure that we take all of them out and examine them and neutralize the poison if we can. The more we turn our lives inside out and shake out the darkness, the more room there will be for light, and hope, and healing.