Hiding My Fast-Food Evidence

And he said to him, “Far from it! You shall not die. Behold, my father does nothing either great or small without disclosing it to me. And why should my father hide this from me? It is not so.” 1 Samuel 20:2

A while back, a new fast-food restaurant opened just across the street from my clinic. My wife and I try to eat (mostly) healthy however, and so, I’d not been there yet. Leaving work one afternoon though, tired and hungry, I pulled into the drive-through to just get one small order of that popcorn shrimp I’d seen advertised. I drove away with a supersized combo meal, which I proceeded to inhale on my drive home. Once home, I disposed of the evidence, deep in the outside garbage can so that my wife wouldn’t find it. I recognized my unhealthy behavior, and I wanted to keep it a secret.

Bothered by this, I eventually told my wife about it. It was mildly amusing but what wasn’t so amusing to me was the reminder of how I behaved in my drug addiction, which survived only in secret. In my addiction, I knew that if my wife ever found out, it would be catastrophic. So, I hid my addiction, keeping it alive as long as I could. I had my lies, and I had my hiding places. I hid what I was doing because I knew how hurtful it would be to my wife, and I knew that her pain would mean discomfort for me and disruption to my life. As long as no one knows, it’s better for everyone. That, of course, was just one more lie, as I tried to hide the truth from even myself.

King Saul did something similar in today’s passage, trying to hide the dark truth from his own son, Jonathan. Jealous and resentful of David, Saul wanted David dead, but he knew Jonathan loved David. At Jonathan’s insistence, Saul promised that he wouldn’t harm David. Unable to keep his word though, Saul obsessively sought to kill David and tried to keep it a secret from those he loved the most.

Even if it hasn’t involved murder, most of us have done something similar. Ashamed of our dark behavior, we try to hide it from those closest to us. Knowing how hurt or disappointed they’d be, we hide our shopping packages, internet searches, or fast-food evidence from those we love the most. As long as no one knows, it’s better for everyone.

In my addiction, I hid everything. So now, living in recovery, I must daily embrace honesty. This means that, when faced with an impulse to do something I’d be ashamed of, I must recognize it as self-destructive. Then, I must decide that it would be far healthier to simply not do it, than to do it and try to hide it in the outside garbage can.