And He will make them know His covenant.
Psalm 25:14
Oh, how cool. "Secret," in the first line of this verse, is the ancient Hebrew word cowd, which literally means a couch or cushion one reclines on while conversing or consulting with someone. (Check out the full Strong's lexical entry for cowd in the online Blue Letter Bible). The sense here is "secret or intimate counsel," so it's essentially saying, "God shares His intimate thoughts only with those who revere Him."
This is very powerful. If we don't meet Him in surrender, our prayers are about as intimately satisfying to Him as if we were strangers, standing outside shouting at Him through the window. Why would He want to reveal His heart to strangers?
Jesus told us to meet with God privately, behind closed doors. These don't have to be literal doors, but this must be a place of secret, intimate counsel. Somewhere we can open our hearts privately to Him, cry, laugh, be taught, sing -- in short, a place where we can enjoy His presence completely, one-on-one, without distraction.
When I discovered in Strong's yesterday that "secret [counsel]" was from a word that meant couch, I was tickled and amazed. Some time last year I began flopping down on the sofa to meet with Him, every morning right after breakfast. There are other places I meet with Him, of course, but this is our usual spot. In fact, a couple of times recently, I was about to meet with Him in an armchair in the same room, and got the distinct impression He wanted me to move to the sofa. Clearly He sees the humor in this. But I also take it as a sweet comment, that He loves the fact that I want not just to meet with Him, but to "flop" down before Him.
My prayer is this, that I would prize this intimacy with Him more and more, and meet Him not just in surrender, but in desperation to hear what's on His heart. To feed upon His word, to be ministered to and taught by Him, to love Him deeply and be loved deeply by Him. How could one so intimately honored ever run away?
Ah, but I know my humanness all too well. Staying true to this cowd is the only thing that will keep me true to Him. Staying true to this cowd is the only thing that will keep us, His people, true to Him.
“But I would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
And with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
Psalm 81:16