When nobody is watching

There is a version of ourselves that we show to other people. Then there is the person we are when nobody is watching. Those two people should be the same. That is integrity. A person can appear honest while secretly being dishonest. A person can appear humble while secretly craving recognition. A person can appear loving while harbouring resentment. A person can speak about purity while secretly feeding impure thoughts. A person can appear faithful in public while living a completely different life in private. People may never discover the difference. But God does. Jesus said:

For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.

Character is not primarily about what people think of us. It is about who we really are.

The secret life

We live in a world increasingly concerned with appearance. Photographs can be edited. Words can be carefully chosen. Social media can present an image of a life that does not actually exist. Even religion can become a performance. But God is not impressed by appearances. He sees the heart. David knew that nothing is hidden from Him:

O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.

Because God already knows, David could end the psalm with the prayer we met at the beginning of Part Three: “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23). That is a dangerous prayer. Most of us are quite willing to ask God to bless us. We are less comfortable asking Him to search us. Yet genuine character transformation begins when we allow God to show us who we really are.

Gehazi, the servant of the prophet Elisha, shows what happens when the secret life is exposed. Naaman, a commander who had been healed of leprosy, tried to reward Elisha, who refused. Gehazi ran after Naaman, invented a story, and took silver and clothing for himself. He returned and stood before his master as if nothing had happened. Elisha asked where he had been, and Gehazi said that he had gone nowhere. Elisha replied:

Did not my heart go with you when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you?

What Gehazi believed was hidden had not been hidden at all. Jesus’ words in Luke 12:2 were already true.

Daniel: the same man in private and in public

Daniel is a different picture. Before he was ever tested in public, he made a private decision. As a young man in Babylon, he was offered food from the king’s table, “but Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself” (Daniel 1:8). Nobody forced that decision on him. He made it in his heart before the test arrived. Decades later, when a decree was passed to trap him, he did not change his pattern. He heard that the law had been signed:

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.

Notice the words “as was his custom since early days.” His public faithfulness was the outcome of years of private habits. The man in the lions’ den was the same man who had been praying in his upper room. Character that holds under pressure is usually character that has been formed in secret.

Who are you when nobody can reward you?

Suppose you help someone and nobody knows. Would you still help? Suppose you tell the truth and telling the truth costs you money. Would you still tell it? Suppose you do something good and someone else receives the credit. Can you rejoice? Suppose you forgive someone who will never know that you have forgiven them. Would you do it? These are character tests. They reveal whether our actions are motivated by love or by recognition. Jesus warned against doing righteous acts simply to be seen by others:

Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Why? Because the applause of people can become a substitute for the approval of God.

Character is who you are

We often say, “That’s just the way I am.” Perhaps it is. But the gospel asks a more important question: should that be the way you remain? Maybe you are naturally impatient. Maybe you are quick-tempered, or suspicious, or struggle to forgive. Maybe you enjoy being in control, become defensive when corrected, need people to notice what you do, or find it difficult to admit when you are wrong. Your natural tendencies may explain your behaviour. They do not have to determine your future. Christ can transform character. That is one of the great promises of the gospel.