why do we hide ourselves?

as a kid i often hid myself. behind a couch or the bookshelf in the hall - in the next room over - i could hear all sorts of things that my little ears weren't supposed to hear. i have a friend that i joke with about how as preacher's kids we're good at being quiet so we can hear what's going on with everyone at church, as discussed by our parents. hmm. at that time, hiding myself, or being unobtrusive were excellent observation tools.

as i'm older now, i see people hide like that all the time... i'm not sure it's so healthy a habit. you've seen them too - the quiet shy ones, or perhaps the loud opinionated ones who never share anything personal. the difference between me as a kid hiding to hear about grown-ups lives, and being an actual grown up "hiding" in the way i am thinking of are distinct. and i am guilty of it at times. this kind of hiding involves being right in the middle of a room, visible to all, without a voice and without action.

for example: when i am in company with my peers and one has expressed an opinion or applauded an action or choice i believe to be immoral, and i do nothing. sometimes, as a young christian adult it's easy to hide my true self, and cast a cloak of indiffence, or neutrality over me. it's easy to shrug my shoulders and neglect to say what i know is right, or to acquaint my companions with a different and equally valid point of view. it's easy. and it's wrong.

the world makes it easy to hide your true beliefs in the shadows, and eventually the more you hide those things that were once so important to you, you cast them aside as if they were nothing. the passion for a cause, the passion for a pure life, the passion for life itself can be choked out of a soul with the simple silence of acceptance and a choice not to rock the boat.

why do we hide ourselves? i am a christian. i believe in Jesus Christ, that he is the son of God... i believe that there is a certain way that i should live as a believer, and that it is NOT easy. it is simple, and straightforward, uncomplicated, but it is not easy.

"Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open." Mark 4: 21-22