"Hiding in Me"

We have all tried at times to think of ways of improving our lives. Add something here or there or maybe get rid of some things that just clutter up the place. Get back in shape, or at least try to change our shape into something more appealing. So we join health clubs for a while, or go on diets, we buy things, sell things, consider a career change etc. But I would dare say that no one has ever thought, I am going to turn my house into a prison. I have finally figured out what my life has been missing, some good old fashioned jail time.

There are many different kinds of prisons we can build for ourselves, but the one I am thinking about right now is the prison of concealment, covering up wrong doing.

Proverbs 18:1 He who isolates himself...

No one deliberately goes out trying to put themselves in prison. There is a law that pertains to all sin called the law of unintended consequences and bondage (jail time) is always one of them. As soon as that choice is made to do something that we know is wrong , something we cannot tell our spouse or our parents or friends and certainly not God, we hear those large prisons doors clanging shut. We have just put ourselves in prison. We get uncomfortable around people and we try to avoid them. Conversation that was once free and flowing is now calculated and tense. Times we used to enjoy with them are now strained and awkward. The freedom we once enjoyed just being ourselves around others is now lost. To us they have now become like prison guards and we don't like them. We think they are the one's keeping us locked up and miserable but they aren't. They are just being themselves, we are the ones who have changed. We are the ones who sentenced ourselves to "hard time". We fear that hard question, or can't take those penetrating eyes. This is a prison we have erected all by ourselves. The guilty conscience makes life a prison. We now have shackles on our feet and hands our tongue. We are constantly looking over our shoulders for guilty people are paranoid people.

I remember in grade school reading short stories and one that I never forgot was "The Tell-Tale Heart". Do you remember reading that? My memory is a bit fuzzy but the story centers around a murder and the murderer puts the body in the floor of their house, and unsuspecting people come over to visit and the beat of the dead man's heart hidden under the floor boards gets louder and louder and louder and louder and louder.

That is how the guilty conscience works. We yell, "Be Quiet" but it won't listen. That is a prison many people live in. Running away is not the answer. If you are in prison there is only one way out. Confession and repentance. Face what put you there to begin with.

1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins He (Christ) is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

One of my teachers in college used to say "Keep short accounts with God". May I add to that, keep short accounts with others as well. Guard your heart, beware of the need to isolate yourself from others. Let me close with this quote.

"Keep clear of concealment -- keep clear of the need of concealment. It is an awful hour when the first necessity of hiding something comes. When there are questions to be feared and eyes to be avoided and subjects which must not be touched, the bloom of life is gone. " ... Phillips Brooks

What is hidden in your floor? Have you built a prison for yourself your living in right now? What are you hiding from others that is destroying that relationship? Sin ALWAYS enslaves. Jesus said "the Truth will ALWAYS set you free." So confess, repent and walk out of the doors of your man made prison into the light of a new day filled with renewed relationships, trust, openness, a clear conscience before God and fellowship with Christ and with others. For further reading Psalm 32:1-5