Goodness And Wickedness That Only God Knows About (March 6, 2005)

May your secret life be holy.

Yesterday I went to the funeral of Sophie Laske, who died of Alzheimer's. Her son told me that in recent days he received emails and comments from people he did not know telling him about kind things his mother had done for them. Several times he said, "Mom never told me any of this!" Sophie simply "went around doing good" (Acts 10:38), and managed to keep her charitable work a secret even from her own son.

Those of us who lack Sophie's humility can't bear to let some good deed of ours go unnoticed (perhaps because we have so few of them), and find ways to leak the details of our gracious help. This vanity runs counter to the spirit of Christ, who said, "When you give to the needy , do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret" (Matthew 6:3). Secret virtue is a sign of a person at peace with God and far advanced in his kingdom.

Just as secret vice is a sign of a hell-bound fiend. There is no clearer case of that than Dennis Rader, hard-working family man, Boy Scout leader, church council president - and serial killer. Rader, Wichita's notorious BTK killer, apparently fooled even his own family for decades.

As did that pathetic human garbage can, Charles Lindbergh, who for a time fooled a whole nation into thinking he was worthy of honor. Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic on the first solo flight on May 21, 1927, and basked in world admiration for decades following. But in private he was cruel - forbidding his wife Anne to cry in his presence when their son was murdered. He despised races other than his own, writing that Whites "can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood." (That aspect of Lindbergh's character was not so secret - he sympathized with Nazis and in 1938 gratefully received from Hermann Goering the German Eagle Award.) Just last year we learned that Lindbergh the family man had a secret second family in Germany with Brigitte Hesshaimer, by whom he fathered three children. (It is also virtually certain that he fathered two children by Brigitte's sister Marietta, though that family refuses to submit to DNA tests.) Though publicly lauded, Lindbergh was at heart a nasty racist lying adulterer. Now we know.

Sooner or later our secrets come out, for good or ill. St. Paul writes, "The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not cannot be hidden" (1 Timothy 5:24-25). Remember that, and take this warning (and encouragement) to heart. Train yourself to do good when no one is watching but God, and refrain from evil when only he would know. Confess your sins, but concerning your good works keep your mouth shut. That way, when your secrets are made known, many will be pleased and none will be horrified.