Hey Boys, I Pulled Something

I was already feeling old before I ever teed it up.

This past weekend I got to play golf with an absolutely amazing group of young men. Their energy was contagious. Their love for life, for God, for each other, and for a good time was the kind of thing you want to bottle up and take home. I came home better for having been around them.

The golf, however, was humbling.

I was playing with clubs older than most of them, in a body that isn't as young as it used to be. I'd catch one on the screws, watch it sail down the middle, and feel pretty good about myself. Then they'd step up, and their ball would practically chuckle as it flew past mine and settled 30 yards further down the fairway.

So I did what any reasonable man would do. I swung harder. Then a little harder. By the last day I was swinging like my life depended on it. Then, on the fifth hole, mid follow through, I felt a little pop in my groin and a searing pain shot down my leg.

And what did I do? I shrugged it off. We were in a friendly competition, and there was no way I was letting these young guys see the old man hurting. Besides, I wanted to win. So I smiled, eased into the cart, and pretended all was good.

We lost by a hole. I finished the round limping badly. And as is usually the case with muscles and tendons, the next morning was worse. I could barely walk.

That's the thing about pride. It makes you do dumb things. All I had to say was, "Hey boys, I just pulled something and it hurts like heck. I'd better sit out the rest of the day so I don't make it worse." Instead, I wanted to win and look good doing it. So I kept it a secret, and the secret made it worse.

Secrets usually do.

In the summer of 1893, the country was sliding into one of the worst financial panics in its history. Banks were failing, railroads were collapsing, and Americans were looking to President Grover Cleveland to steady the ship. Then his doctors found a cancerous growth on the roof of his mouth.

Cleveland decided the nation couldn't see him weak. So he announced a fishing trip and boarded a friend's yacht. While it cruised Long Island Sound, surgeons removed a large part of his upper jaw below deck. He was fitted with a rubber prosthesis so his face wouldn't look sunken, and he went back to work as if nothing had happened.

A reporter named E.J. Edwards got wind of it and broke the story. The White House flatly denied it. Edwards was branded a liar, and his reputation took a beating. The truth didn't come out until 1917, when one of the surgeons finally told the story, nearly a decade after Cleveland had died.

The secret held. But the man who told the truth paid for someone else's lie. That's how secrets work. They rarely stay contained to the person keeping them.

Proclaimed from the house tops. That is not a gentle verse. Jesus said it right after warning His disciples about hypocrisy, the slow, quiet rot of looking one way on the outside while being something else on the inside.

Here's what I've learned, a few times the hard way. Secrets are never secret forever. And small ones don't stay small. A hidden pulled muscle becomes a tear and a few weeks of pain. A hidden mistake on a file becomes a missed closing. A hidden habit becomes a hidden life. And that's usually when people get hurt, and rarely just us. You can't live a secret life and follow God at the same time.

Plus, there are no secrets from God anyway. He saw the pop on the fifth hole. He sees whatever we're swinging harder to cover up. The only question is whether we bring it into the light ourselves while it's still small, or wait for the rooftop.

Bringing it into the light feels like losing. It isn't. It's how you stop the limping. If you are carrying secrets right now, check your pride and make them know before the real damage begins.