The Cost of Covering

There is a math that every hiding man does without realizing it. He weighs the pain of being known against the comfort of staying covered, and he keeps choosing the cover, telling himself he is protecting something. The proverb cuts through that arithmetic. Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, it says, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Concealment promises safety and delivers a slow kind of starving, a life that never quite thrives because so much energy goes into the hiding.

The alternative it names has two motions in it, confessing and forsaking, bringing the sin into words and then turning from it. One without the other stays incomplete. A man can confess the same sin for years without ever moving his feet, and a man can white-knuckle away from a sin he has never once admitted. Mercy is promised to the one who does both, who says it plainly and then walks in a new direction.

If you have been covering, notice what it has actually cost you, the tiredness of it. Then bring one concealed thing into the light with God tonight, and ask him for the mercy he has already promised is there.