Well Kept Secrets

I’ve often wondered about the thoughts that I have subconsciously. Why do I not realize I’m thinking them? What repressed emotions are there? For instance, there was one time I hung out with this girl and every time we hung out together, I ended up doing something ridiculous which ended up cutting our time together short. Once, I accidentally spilled my drink on the table which got into her lap and she had to go home to change. Another time, I mistakenly gave her the wrong address to the party we were supposed to hang at together. It wasn’t until about our billionth outing that I realized….this girl is not my real friend. Why are you trying to force this friendship? In a nutshell, I just really did not like this girl, and I began to think that subconsciously, all those things I did were intentional.

Earlier this week, Mommy introduced me to ‘Today's Seed,’ a daily bible devotional sent via email, and the passage that was referenced was Isaiah 29:15 -16. It read, “Look at them! They try to hide things from the LORD. They think he will not understand. They do their evil things in darkness. They tell themselves: "No one can see us. No one will know who we are.” In Genesis it states that “every intent of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually” (6:5).  Our subconscious is a manifestation of the ill intended thoughts that are created in our hearts. While my mind thinks that I have no intention to be evil and I’d like to only “think good thoughts,” I know that as a human being I have more thoughts like, “I can’t stand that b,” or “If only I could push him down a flight of stairs,” and I have no control over not thinking these things. I do have control over whether or not I act upon them. These are only the thoughts that are brought to my attention. The ones that I’m aware of, so only God truly knows what my mind is capable of, which brings me to think why spend so much time trying to hide who I am, when the only being that matters essentially knows the truth.

On a daily basis, I spend about half of my time lying to myself and others about things that don’t really make much of a difference one way or the other. For instance, truthfully….I love sex. The conscious decision to give it up may have been one of the hardest things to do in life; however, if you ask my friends or anyone I talk to about it they’ll probably tell you that I think it’s easy or I just don’t think about it. In actuality, I think about it more often than not, and sometimes I try to talk myself into getting back on the saddle, knowing that it’s not good for me. “It will feel great,” I say. I would not ever express these things to anyone close to me, but Heavenly Papa knows how I feel. He also knows the feelings of guilt, shame, and failure I’d feel if I ever succumbed to those thoughts.  

He knows it all: What drives my states of depression, my deepest fears, things that make me anxious, things that excite me, amuse me,  EVERYTHING. He knows that I’m going to lie to make a stranger feel better in spite of the truth before I even do it. It literally just happened. This Middle Eastern guy asked me if I thought Middle Eastern men were attractive, and then said me…do you think I’m attractive. I said yes. What else was I supposed to say? Well sir, I’m sure lots of people would find you attractive…I’m just not one of them? It’s so difficult to be honest all the time.

Typically, I have no issue with telling strangers the truth. It’s a lot easier because chances are I’d never see them again. I believe this is what drives most random grocery aisle personal conversations. Ironically, I find that the person it’s most difficult to be honest with constantly is myself.  We as people spend hours worrying about how we’ll be judged by others, but our own worst critic is ourselves; at least I am mine. The rest of the world could care less about what I have going on and even if they did, it doesn’t matter. So I’ve decided that because I can’t hide anything from my Father, I should not continuously hide things from myself, and when trying to figure out my motivations for doing certain things, I’m going to think twice about what’s driving those actions because the saying is true. What you do in the darkness will eventually come to the light, and if it’s something that I have to hide, I probably shouldn’t be doing it anyway.