secret!

Friendship belongs to those who fear the Lord.  With them He shares His secrets… (Psalm 25:14 TLB)

Secret! I love a good secret. Keeping a secret requires that we remain on our guard.  We don’t  want to “spill the beans” in a thoughtless moment. The Bible tells that God has secrets–and shares His secrets with His friends.  Jesus said, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you (John 15:15).  Prayer is kind of like keeping a secret with God.  We take our secret requests to Him and remain alert to His voice–ready to take action as He leads.

When our children were small, I made up a little game called the “Secret Mailbox Club” to help them get a picture of what it means to entrust our secret prayers to God. I reminded them that when I put mail in our family’s mailbox, I put the flag up and walk away.  I don’t pitch a tent and wait anxiously for the mailman.

I encouraged the children to draw a picture of whatever was on their hearts–it might be a worry or fear,  a situation at school, a secret hope or dream.  We  put these “prayers” into our handmade construction paper mailbox and put the flag up.  “Now, let’s trust God with our secret prayers,” I ‘d tell them. “We can be sure He will send the answers in His time.”

This little game helped them (and me) grasp the concept of trust, and what it means to “cast our anxieties on Him…” (1 Peter 5:7).   If we truly trust in the character of our loving, all-powerful God, we can pray and walk away knowing the situation is in His hands.  We’ll rest secure as we wait for our “mail” to arrive.