Dallas Willard’s discipline of secrecy is a spiritual practice where individuals intentionally refrain from letting their good deeds and qualities be known to others. This discipline is about cultivating a deeper relationship with God by seeking His approval rather than human recognition. Willard explains that practicing secrecy helps believers dwell in “the secret place of the Most High” (Psalm 91:1) and be “free from the strife of tongues” (Psalm 31:20) 1.
By keeping their good actions hidden, individuals can focus on their spiritual growth and humility, avoiding the temptation of pride and the desire for external validation 1. This practice is part of Willard’s broader teachings on spiritual disciplines, which include both disciplines of abstinence (like secrecy, solitude, and fasting) and engagement (like worship and service) 2.
Have you ever practiced the discipline of secrecy? You may not have thought of this as a discipline.
The discipline of secrecy, as Jesus taught and modeled it, is intentionally hiding your prayers or good deeds to please only your Father in heaven, “who is in secret”; it’s the practice of denying ourselves the attention and admiration from others that we like and instead to keep our righteousness quiet (Matthew 5:15, 6:1).
Jesus Practiced Secrecy
Repeatedly Jesus went away by himself to “lonely places” to pray to the Father in secret (Luke 5:16).
When Jesus entered towns he often tried to keep it a secret that he was there, but of course he couldn’t (Mark 7:24). In town after town the crowds swelled around him and he taught them and ministered to them but then he withdrew and went on to another town.
When Jesus healed people he often told them to keep it a secret (Mark 1:44).
He called himself “the Son of Man,” which although it was a Messianic term was a lot more humble then trumpeting that he was “the Son of God.” Peter was the first to confess that Jesus was indeed the Son of God but then Jesus told him not to tell anyone yet. And also after his transfiguration he told the disciples not to tell anyone about seeing his glory.
Jesus showed people his divinity in personal, transformational ways and let them come to their own realization that he was God incarnate, come to be their Lord and Savior.
The Pharisees Drew Attention to Themselves
Jesus’ way of secrecy was a startling contrast to the way of most of the religious leaders of his day: they wore flowing garish garments; had trumpets blown to announce their coming; boasted of their pedigree and achievements; insisted on being called “Rabbi;” prayed long, loud, flowery prayers before admiring crowds; gave their tithes and offerings publicly to be recognized; and took the seats of honor at events.
Similarly, for us today our culture’s way of self-promotion is so inbred in us that we normally don’t even notice it or think of it as taking the focus off of Jesus when we advertise ourselves.
Jesus’ Teaching on Secrecy
But Jesus taught us to follow his example of humility: to pray to their Father in secret, to do our good works quietly, to seek God’s praise and not people’s, and to put aside all selfish ambition (Matthew 6:1-18).
This is not to say that he wanted us always to hide the glory he bestowed on us any more than he hid his own. He also told us “you are the light of the world” and he instructed us to “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14, 16). We let our light shine, allowing other people to see devotion to God or charitable works, as an expression love for others and to glorify God.
But when we keep our light secret it’s for personal soul training to help us grow in humility and dependence upon God alone. This helps us live in such a way that when we let our light shine we know it’s the light of Christ we’re shining and we use it only to draw people’s attention to him (2 Corinthians 4:7).
Why Practice Secrecy?
Secrecy is a discipline of abstinence or self-denial. Denying ourselves attention and praise is a powerful practice for soul transformation. It’s way to help us get free of people-pleasing and managing of what people think of us. It make space for a deeper engagement of love and dependence upon God.
In The Spirit of the Disciplines Dallas Willard explains how to practice dwelling in “the secret place of the Most High” (Psalm 91:1, NKJV), to be “secretly in a pavilion” of God’s presence that is “free from the strife of tongues” (Psalm 31:20, NKJV).
In the discipline of secrecy… we abstain from causing our good deeds and qualities to be known. We may even take steps to prevent them from being known… We learn to love to be unknown and even to accept misunderstanding without the loss of our peace, joy, or purpose… We allow [God] to decide when our deeds will be known and when our light will be noticed… And that love and humility encourages us to see our associates in the best possible light, even to the point of our hoping they will do better and appear better than us (p. 172-3).
An Example
Henri Nouwen in his book In the Name of Jesusprovides an unforgettable example of implementing Jesus’ way of secrecy.
Nouwen left behind 20 years of teaching seminary at Nortre Dame, Yale, and Harvard to live with mentally handicapped people at Daybreak, a L’Arche community. They cared nothing about his religious achievements and intellect. For over a decade he become a part of their community and cared for these societal cast offs by listening, giving hugs, telling stories, and just being with them.
All right, well, we want to hasten on here a little bit on page 73 of your notebooks: Secrecy: The Discipline of Secrecy. Now, what is this discipline? It is the discipline of refraining from letting our good deeds be known. There is no idea that we should always do this or that this is a holy action in itself anymore than fasting is something we should always do or that it is a holy action in itself. When you have the passage in Matthew 6, Jesus is not speaking against being known, He is speaking about acting in order to be known and the teaching of this whole section in Matthew is badly misunderstood by people and you have people who think they should never pray except when they are in their closet. So you have people look at this and say, “Should we pray publicly?” It’s not about praying publicly, it’s about praying in public “to be seen,” right? It’s the motivation and unfortunately, so much of our religion is for the benefit of public consumption. [21:44]
So, now the three things here—Doing righteous deeds of alms giving and so forth and the word is beware of practicing your righteous deeds before men “to be noticed.” That’s like the passage in Matthew 5 where He says, “You look on a woman “to” lust.” See, that’s the reality of the person lies in their motives. That’s what makes something good or bad is the motive. We retain this for example in our court system. The difference between pre-meditated murder and manslaughter and in the courts there is constant attention to motives. That is something we really want to hang on to; that is where true human goodness lies. It is in motives and we have to come back now to this wonderful piece that Steve brought to our attention from the New York Times because there is something very good in it and there is something quite mistaken and harmful in it and we want to talk about that but it has to do with motives. That piece is talking about the difference between, you know embezzling a little and embezzling a lot but the difference is not between a lot and a little. The moral difference is between “Am I an embezzler?” or “Did I just embezzle?” And people are very wary of wanting to be identified as an embezzler because that gets to the kind of person they are. They think they can fool themselves by sticking at the level of the deed and the deed is not where the action is and that’s what Jesus is talking about. He is not talking about giving your money in such a way that it’s acknowledged. He is talking about giving your money in order to be acknowledged. It’s a kind of truism around fundraisers and universities and other places that you cannot raise funds for mops. Fundraising usually wants something with a wall big enough to put a name on it and mops aren’t very good in that connection—so janitorial services are hard to endow. It’s because of what Jesus is talking about—people wanting to be seen as righteous and same thing with reference to prayer and with reference to fasting. I am not saying don’t let people know you fast or don’t let people hear you praying; don’t pray to be seen and in each case, He has this very clever observation. Well, they had their reward. They prayed to be seen and what do you know? They got seen. They got their reward. But pray to your Father who is in secret; that is to say He is not visible and your Father who is in secret will reward you openly and people will not have any idea where it came from but you are not doing it for their recognition anyway. So, secrecy is a discipline that frees us up from approval and disapproval by human beings. Now, you can reflect on how much of your life might be changed if you were freed up from that but practicing this enables us to live and stand before the audience of One. The audience of One is the only One that matters. The others do not matter. Now, sometimes it is an act of love to help an honest inquirer understand what you are doing as long as it is to help them; that is certainly legitimate. It is your caring about them but as long as it is to help people appreciate you, you better not do it—not a good thing. Let that go! [26:28]
This is one place where the practice of the discipline of silence will help you. It will enable you to keep your tongue in your head and not go out of your way to make sure that people understand you and think well of you. If it’s to help them, there is a way that can be taken care of and sometimes that is an act of mercy and we have Paul’s admonition, “Let not your good be evil spoken of” and sometimes we need to help people with that but that’s not the general rule. Secrecy frees us up; there is nothing wrong with good deeds being known. Sometimes they should be. There is a legitimate role of testimony but there is something wrong with doing them to be known and drawing our joy out of their being known. How much does our peace and joy depend upon people knowing and understanding? We need to be careful with that. So, this practice teaches us to be content without human approval and that our business with God is not filtered through others of necessity. We don’t depend upon the approval of people and that is a real load off your back. I remember how it helped me to read in Thomas a Kempis many years ago about what people say about you doesn’t make you any different. What you are, you are! If they speak ill of you, it doesn’t make you ill. If they speak well of you, it doesn’t make you well. Of course, he was very big on this idea of standing before the audience of One. [28:32]
I mention here the example of George Mueller in—I quote this in The Spirit of the Disciplinesand talk about him some. It is very interesting to see how in recent years a lot of people have attempted to tear him down and criticize him and find something wrong with him. I am sure he would have been the last to deny that there is something wrong with him but what he did was very remarkable indeed and while it was not perfect no doubt, he did often make his requests only known unto God. Now, after you build a community around that, well, it works a little differently but nevertheless, he following a practice which he wanted to renown to the glory of God, not to his talking, not to his fame and so, in his stories you have numerous accounts of how not telling anyone they were out of food at the orphanages and going to sit down at the table when there was no food and food coming to the door. Now, I understand that people tend to tell their victories and not their defeats but you don’t need many victories like that to be pretty impressed. So, I think he’s a good one to look at and in general, our idea is we want to be dependent on God. Being dependent on God is a great faith builder and knowledge builder and so we can learn through secrecy to break the habit of depending upon being known. Well, this is a really important discipline, I think. [30:26]
You know, it’s one of the disciplines where you sort of “get it down” and then you don’t pay much attention to it. It is what I call a “hygienic” discipline—a clean up the mess discipline and so it’s important, I think and you can imagine how much of our lives, especially in religion, would be changed if we were not angling for approval or to avoid disapproval. [30:59]
So, that’s a striking expression of contentment with God. “I am with you always,” He says and is that enough? Well, people who have followed Christ through the ages have repeatedly found that it was enough and in fact, it’s amazing how many wonderful things have come out of prison. Prison is of course a kind of forced deprivation that includes other disciplines such as solitude and silence sometimes and the benefits of accepting that and dwelling on God alone. See, what sacrifice and loss helps us know is that God is enough. God is enough! Now, that presupposes of course that we are with God, that there’s a meaningful understanding of what that amounts to and that when we are told that nothing can come between us and God. [40:34] What can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus? Now, you have two ways of taking that. One is, if you wish a non-experimental way that no matter what happens to you, God still loves you, right? But, I don’t think that is what He is talking about. I think He is talking about no matter what happens, you can be and live in the conscious presence of God—the conscious presence—not just a metaphysical truth or a theological truth but the conscious presence of God and that is what I think is dealt with elsewhere–the 23rd Psalm—Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because what?” Though art with me. That’s good company and it’s enough and it will even go through death. So, this is a really important thing to learn and in a time when martyrs were a very real part of Christian life. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this old book, Fox’s Book of Martyrs? And of course, it’s written from a particular point of view but then you can get those that were written from other points of view because in those days both sides burned people on the other side. So, that’s a kind of run through of some of the main disciplines of abstinence—disciplines of abstinence. [42:12]
Now, we will be looking at some of the Disciplines of Engagement later on. Not as many as this because our purpose here is to try to establish the principle and some understanding of a few of the main disciplines as activities that enable us to actually live in the way that Christ teaches us, but now we want to pause at this point and confront that question: Can we actually do that? Can we actually do it? [43:00]
And we want especially to look at The Sermon on the Mount and think about the things that are taught there and whether or not we should think of this as something to do. Now, I don’t think there is any question that the text itself presumes that these are things to do, right? When you come to the end, there are various warnings about not doing what Jesus said and boy, that can really get you going if you don’t understand what He is talking about; especially if you think as most people do that when confronted with the Sermon on the Mount, you are being challenged to do what it said without being transformed and if you are not transformed in a significant degree, you can’t do any of that. You simply can’t do it and that’s how most people approach it because they don’t understand how Jesus teaches and because they don’t understand how He is teaching and they don’t look at His teaching as a whole and they are just brought up against this stuff and it slaps them in the face and they are hopeless.
So, we want to take some time now to look at this Sermon on the Mount and we want to start in the lead up to it but let’s back up a moment because if you want to appreciate Jesus, you have to put Him over against everyone else that is teaching. You don’t just look at Him. You look at Him and you are comparing to all the other people who are talking and these are the basic questions that any great teacher of any small but presumptuous teacher has to address [overhead is displayed] so your favorite talk show host will address these questions whether they want to or don’t even understand what they are doing. [45:33]
So, now we want to talk about these for a moment and then we look at Jesus’ teaching and realize how He is responding to them and the basic question is right out of Exodus 20—first and second commandment—reality. What is reality? Well, “I AM the Lord your God”—I brought you out of the land of Egypt. You want to know reality? That’s it! Reality. Or when Jesus comes, He says, “Repent for the Kingdom of the Heavens is at hand.” That’s a reality teaching. Now, when you read someone like Plato or Aristotle or Confucius or Buddha or whoever, they will give you a reality teaching and in some of the clearer cases, for example, Plato, the nature of reality consists in what he calls forms—universal kinds of entities which fix the nature of everything else. We might call them qualities and relations but the most important ones are things like the form of the good and you address, what is goodness? Well, goodness for him is a kind of great power that gives reality to everything else and through which alone you can understand everything else. You want to understand why there are plumbagos; well, in the end, because it is good that there be plumbagos. Now, of course, he is concerned mainly about human life and he has a lot to say about the soul so who is a good person? Well, it’s a person with a soul that is in a certain order dictated by the form of the good. You read Sigmund Freud and he will tell you about reality and he will tell you “well, there is an id and an ego and a superego,” right? And all of the psychologists—Watson, Skinner—existentialist psychologists of various kinds; reality is what they are teaching. [48:11]
Now, they don’t normally start there just as with Plato. They normally start with the second question: Who is well off? That’s the big one and that gets quickly related to three—Who is a really good person? And the piece from the New York Times is actually about who is a really good person? And people are vitally interested in that and they desperately want to be a good person. That’s why snipping a little bit here or there isn’t as important to them because they think, “well, you know, I can do that and still be a good person.” One of my favorite illustrations of this is—what is the talk show host, Imus when he used some racial language and lost his job and so he got on the talk shows and one of his lines was, “I’m a good person but I did something bad….. but I’m a good person.” People desperately want to hold onto that. We don’t have time to go into that a lot but being a good person has a very different meaning from doing the right thing and everyone understands that there are levels. Who is well off? Well, for Plato, if you are well adjusted to the form of the good; that usually has to be through a society of a certain kind and that’s nearly true of all the traditional moralists; all the way up to Kont or even later is the idea that you are a good person if you are integrated in a certain kind of reality so the first question is primary. You may not start there but that’s the one that is primary in answering all the rest. Who is a really good person according to the Buddha? Well, there is an answer to that and it is based upon the Buddha’s understanding of what is a person made up of and it involves things like the visible world is actually an illusion and the problem is to escape suffering, passion, feeling, and the way you do that is finding out that you are an illusion so why should you be worried about you? Why should you be trying to get one up on somebody else? The teaching about reality determines who is well off. The veil of Maya, which we look at when we look around isn’t real. A tiger coming at you to eat you is not real and you are not real either so why worry about it. Let him chew away because it’s a non-existent chew. The story about—man goes to his guru and learns that elephants are not real so he goes out on the street and here comes an elephant and he steps out in from of him and the elephant steps on him so he goes back to the guru and says, “the elephant stepped on me” and the guru says, “What elephant? What elephant?” So, there is some real strong medicine in many of the traditional teachings about these things and one of them does have to do with simply denying that the physical world is real. It is amazing how many people come up with that. Now, the Christian teaching isn’t that because the Christina teaching holds that creation is real and it is good and so on and that’s a different teaching. [52:30]
The fourth question—How do you become a really good person? Well, go to USC. No, they won’t promise you that and you want to realize that now our university systems don’t try to answer these questions. There are a lot of people in that system that will “throw off” answers but if you go to UCLA or USC or Harvard and you inquire about the reality department? They will say, “You wait here and we will get somebody.” They will come and get you. They don’t’ have answers to these questions and that’s one of the things that is so important for us to understand as ministers and teachers today. They have no answers in the system that surrounds us and that’s why we are so prone to consumerism and drugs and all sorts of experiences that will distract us and take our minds off of the hopeless situation and Christ comes and says, “Well, God is real and His Kingdom is real.” Now, reality is what you can depend on. That’s reality. It’s what you run into when you are wrong. So, reality, the test of reality is your experience. Also, it can help if you have some information from various sources but reality is what you can depend on. What can you depend on? Well, got lots of offers—your, what is it? Your 401K? You can depend on your 401K; then someone starts messing with money. So, we try to depend on things. You can depend on national defense. Well, until others catch up, right? So, that’s the question Jesus says, “the Kingdom of God.” That’s what you can depend on. Stop scheming and trust in the reality of the Kingdom of God, which is at hand. What’s the Kingdom of God? It’s God in action and then you go on to things like “Who is well off?” And Jesus says, “Anyone alive in the Kingdom of God is well off.” Are you poor? If you are in the Kingdom of God, you are blessed. Are you rich? If you are not in the Kingdom of God, you are not blessed. Right? So, you get a teaching about blessing and then you get a teaching about who is a really good person. Well, that’s someone who is beyond the righteousness of the Scribe and the Pharisee, right? Who is a really good person? A really good person who is someone who is permeated with agape love; their lives are soaked in it and they come out dripping.That’s a really good person. And, then of course, how do you get to be a really good person? [58:23] Follow me. That’s what Jesus says. He says, “those who hear my words and do what I say, I’ll tell you what they are like. They are like a man that built his house on a rock.” Right? Because of course if you do that, you are going to be based upon the reality of the Kingdom of God and enjoying true blessedness. All of that comes together, you see. Become a disciple of Jesus. Follow His vision into the Kingdom of God. Am I making any sense to you at all? Because this is what you are presenting when you speak and live wherever it is you speak and live. Well, I hope that is what you are presenting. [59:19]
Q: How do you answer a question that you don’t know anything about?
A: Well, if you don’t know, what you would say is, “I don’t know.” You just say that. Christians are honest. They don’t try to fake it. So, maybe you say, “I don’t know but I’ll go find out.”
Now, of course, very few people can know all the philosophies but someone should in the fellowship of Christians know about this. So, those of us who can’t know about it perhaps we know someone who does know or perhaps we don’t and all we can say is, “Well, look, I don’t know about that but let me tell you about the Kingdom of God. Let me tell you about Jesus and then you can compare Him to the Buddha and Sigmund Freud.
