Hidden Things Reveal Waiting Miracles

 I sit and stare at the broken-open robin's egg on the kitchen table. It was found in the front yard a few weeks ago...a reminder of spring's arrival and all things new and alive. Ragged edges spoke of the busting apart, the breaking-open as life pushed out and began to breathe. And somehow it hits me in a powerful way.
 I think of how all of life takes shape in hidden places. Birds must lie in wait for their eggs to hatch. Caterpillars must spin a cocoon in order to form into a butterfly. Human beings must take shape in a mother's womb before bursting out of the birth canal into the world. And a soul must have known times of being shelled up before it can be broken wide and given as an offering. 

It is in the taking shape in hidden places that we are made into what we can be given as grace to a world that desperately seeks it. It is in the breaking apart of that shell that we begin life anew. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when He said that one must be born again if they would see the Kingdom?

Soul-work, heart-surgery, is rarely done in the plain view. Often, only we and the Great Physician even know what's going on. To those looking in from outside, it appears as though there is no need for hidden hearts. Hidden hearts are bad hearts. But I'm beginning to re-think this. Because if a heart has never hidden, perhaps it cannot value love fully. 

If a soul has never been broken, the clenched fists may never open. If we have never been busted up, bruised, broken-down...then we can never understand what abundant life really feels like. Only those who have had their souls ripped right open can know what it's like to live with a mended heart. A heart whose scars tell a story interlaced with mercy at every turn. 

When Nicodemus came to the Savior, his was a hidden conversation (John 3:1-21). He wanted to believe...and don't we all? ...but he was too afraid of what an open, public conversation would do. He had to speak to Christ at night. And didn't Christ's light perhaps shine the brighter? Doesn't His light always come through more gloriously when the darkness falls heavy? When the heart seems to have lost its hope completely? 

And the Savior's words were simply that nobody could see the Kingdom unless they were given new life. He told him that Light had come into the world - that He was the answer...standing right in front of him - but that people were missing the answer because they loved the darkness more than the Light. And that what held them back from this abundant life was a fear that their secret sins would be exposed. 

Ah...yes. Exposure is how ...and ONLY how...life anew can be obtained. The hidden must be brought to life and revealed. What has been withheld must be shown. And those who walk in truth know it deep - that your life upon conversion goes from being hidden in darkness...hidden in yourself...to being hidden with Christ. And His promises hold true that whoever believes no longer has to live in fear of being found-out. Because the darkness no longer keeps you from the Light but allows the Light to shine within you the brighter!

I finger the broken egg-shell and once again return to the thought that hidden things is where God does his work the best. It is not always seen in the open. Often, He is forming His masterpiece of us when others aren't looking. Covered in the protection of His plan, our souls are moulded into His design on a time-table that isn't ours in a way only He can know. And, after this heart-gestation period has sufficiently occurred, He breaks us free and lets us take flight on wings of faith to new heights in our journey to Grace. 

After all, didn't Christ Himself have to be buried in the ground in a sealed-off tomb for three days before He could rise again? And won't He do the same to my dead places in that the breaking free is always preceded by a season of hidden waiting? Of trusting in a process only He can see and perform? 

So maybe...hidden hearts aren't always hopeless hearts. Just hearts that are being worked on. Soul-surgery only Christ knows they need. Have patience with a hurting heart. A heart that is shelled-off. A heart that is waiting for the resurrection-promise of the Savior. Because there just might be more going on than is readily seen. 

And someplace, a new baby bird has just received it's new wings and is taking flight on a Spring breeze. And all that's left is a beautiful half-shell that once housed a living miracle of life.




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