When God Reveals What’s Hidden

Today I spent time in the Word of God, reading 1 Samuel 3:1–14.

Before I began, I asked God to reveal Himself to me through His Word. I wanted Him to show me what I needed to see, not just what was happening in Samuel’s life or Eli’s house, but what He wanted to reveal in me.

And as I read, I couldn’t help but feel as though, at one time, I was the house of Eli.

That is difficult for me to write.

In this passage, God tells Samuel that judgment is coming upon Eli’s house. Eli knew about the sin taking place within his family. He knew his sons were dishonoring God, yet he did not restrain them as he should have.

As I sat with those words, God began bringing me back to a time in my own life when I was allowing things in my home that I knew were sinful and disobedient.

I knew they were wrong.

But I justified them.

I made excuses for them.

I found ways to make myself feel better about them.

And at the same time, I still claimed the name of Christian.

That realization hurts.

Because there is a difference between struggling with sin and making peace with it. There is a difference between falling and getting back up in repentance, and knowingly allowing disobedience to remain while continually finding ways to justify it.

God has been teaching me that following Jesus isn’t simply about claiming His name. He wants my heart. He wants my obedience. He wants every room of my house, not just the parts I am comfortable giving Him.

My story also contains a loss that changed my life forever.

In 2021, I lost my husband, Brett Morris to suicide.

Reading this passage brought up complicated emotions for me because I began thinking about the destruction of Eli’s household and the consequences connected to the disobedience that had been allowed there. I found myself looking backward at my own home, my own choices, and everything that happened.

But I do realize that there is something I have to be careful about:

I cannot claim to know that my husband’s death was God’s judgment on my household. I don’t know that, and Scripture doesn’t give me the authority to say that.

What I can say is that this passage caused me to confront the condition of my own heart during that season.

And maybe that is part of what God wanted me to see.

Not an explanation for everything that happened.

A revelation of me.

Jeremiah 33:3 says: “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

I have always loved the thought of God revealing great and hidden things. But today I realized something: sometimes the hidden things He reveals aren’t mysteries about our circumstances. Sometimes they are things hidden inside our own hearts.

Our motives.

Our attitudes.

Our compromises.

Our excuses.

Our disobedience.

The things we have learned to tolerate that God never asked us to tolerate.

The things we have justified for so long that we barely recognize them as disobedience anymore.

When we genuinely call upon God and ask Him to reveal truth, we have to be willing for that truth to expose us too.

And strangely enough, today I don’t feel condemnation as I write this.

I feel gratitude.

Because when I look back at the woman I was, I can also see just how relentlessly God has pursued my heart.

He didn’t leave me there.

He didn’t abandon me in my compromise.

He didn’t look at my hypocrisy and decide I was too far gone.

He pursued me.

He corrected me.

He convicted me.

He began removing the scales from my eyes and teaching me His truth. And He is still sanctifying me today.

I am not writing this as someone who has arrived. I am writing it as a woman who desperately needs Jesus and is becoming increasingly aware of just how much she needs Him. Every single day.

There are still things God reveals in me that need to change. There are attitudes He corrects. There are areas where He calls me into deeper obedience. There are moments when His Word exposes something in my heart that I would honestly rather not see.

But I am learning to thank Him for the exposure.

Because conviction is not evidence that God has abandoned me.

It can be evidence that He is pursuing me.

There was a time when I could live in disobedience and spend more energy justifying it than repenting of it. Today, when God reveals something in me that doesn’t align with Him, I want my response to be different.

“Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

That part of Samuel’s story means something completely different to me now.

Speak, Lord.

Even when what You say is uncomfortable.

Speak, Lord.

Even when Your Word confronts something I’ve justified.

Speak, Lord.

Even when You reveal something about my heart that I don’t want to admit.

Speak, Lord.

Because I would rather be corrected by a God who loves me than comfortably remain in something that is separating my heart from Him.

One of the greatest gifts God has given me is not simply rescuing me from things.

It is rescuing me to Himself.

The more I pursue Him, the more I realize He was pursuing me first.

Through grief.

Through conviction.

Through Scripture.

Through repentance.

Through the painful process of seeing myself truthfully.

And through the beautiful process of sanctification.

So today my prayer is simple: God, keep revealing what is hidden. Search my heart.

Show me where I have become comfortable with what You call sin. Show me where my attitudes don’t reflect You. Show me where I am making excuses instead of walking in obedience. And when You show me, give me the humility to repent instead of justify.

Thank You for loving me enough to correct me.

Thank You for pursuing my heart when I was running in the opposite direction.

Thank You for not leaving me where You found me.

And thank You that You are still changing me.

I don’t want to simply claim Christianity. I want my life to belong to Christ.

So I will keep calling on Him. I will keep opening His Word.

I will keep asking Him to reveal the great and hidden things I have not known, even when the hidden thing He chooses to reveal is something inside of me.

And when He speaks, I pray I will have the courage to say:

Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.