Paul Tournier wrote a little book a number of years ago. The title was simple, Secrets.

There is a lot about our accountability talk in church that evaporates the realm of real secrecy. Or, often there is a guilt feeling about what we don’t want to share.

He says (p.9),

“So, to have secrets, to know how to keep them to one’s self, to give them up only willingly, constitutes the first action in the formation of the individual.”

Of course there are secret sins that will be discovered, always. And there are secret actions that have not been God-pleasing that will most often need to be shared to be free. But there are things that we hear from God that are not always to be shared. 

The question would be: 

Does God really want us to let everyone we pray for know it. Or, is every action we do in right behavior to be known? I think not.  In fact didn’t Jesus say in giving the right hand shouldn’t even know what the left is giving?

Does every feeling of discomfort or disappointment need to be made known?  Does everyone need to know your point of temptation?  Even those closest to you? Not always. I think there are many things that gain power when we articulate them at the wrong time and place.

Tournier also writes,

“A certain feeling of power is always attached to the keeping of a secret.” And further, “No one reaches maturity without secret anguishes, secret searches, and secret remorses, even those whose parents are mature and free enough themselves not to add the burden of their own uneasiness to that of their children. For parents have problems too, secret problems also, sexual problems, and still many other problems.”

Of course then there is the very negative side of the shadow life. This is living out two lives; one before the righteous and one lived secretly outside righteousness. A shadow life will destroy. There is the necessity of releasing these bad or dangerous lives by coming out in the open.

Being trusted with another’s secret is one of the greatest trusts a person can have. This is why confession is such a sacred act.  Everyone keeps secrets and at times everyone needs a fellow secret keeper to be healthy.