Do you have many secrets? Nothing makes you listen more carefully than when someone is telling a secret. But there are times when it is best to keep a secret, and sometimes we keep secret a nice surprise that we are concocting for someone we care about. Well, Jesus tells us what he requires of us, but he also kept secrets. Jesus often told parables – stories to help people understand what is important in life, to spark us into asking questions. Sometimes the meaning behind his story was not clear. So his disciples would ask him questions when they were alone with him. His parable about the Sower (Matthew 13:1-17) was not clear to them, so they asked him “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”. We need to be tuned into what Jesus is saying or we can totally miss the point, and we need to pray for him to help us with this. What he says is not a secret that he wants to withhold from us, but something that he wants us to grapple with to properly understand his best for us. The teachings of Jesus in the Bible convey to us what he promises, and his promises will happen. We know this because God’s things promised in the past have been shown to happen. Jesus coming as a man was promised, and it happened, just as it was promised – that he would be killed, and how he would be killed, and he was. Also, that Jesus life was not taken from him, but he freely gave up his life for us. This was the only way that God’s justice could be fulfilled.