The cat's out of the bag

“A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret” Proverbs 11:13

The cat’s out of the bag means a secret has been revealed. This comes from the days of open-markets and a crooked vendor would put a cat in a bag and sell it as a piglet which wouldn’t be noticed until the deceived customer got home.

When our daughter was expecting their second child, he was breech. Because of her size the doctor wanted to attempt an external cephalic version, in other words get the baby to turn. He would have none of that—his heart rate dropped so she was quickly prepped for a C-section. I was escorted to the waiting room where I reached out to some friends to pray for the safety of our daughter and grandson.

Finally I got word all was well with the baby and mom so I felt like I had to let the friends know our prayers were answered. It's hard to keep a secret sometimes, it’s like keeping an air bubble under water, it just wants to surface.

During the ministry of Jesus, in Luke 9:18-22, Jesus tells his disciples not to reveal to anyone who he truly was because there was a plan in place and he didn’t want premature reactions from the authorities. My footnote for 9:21 says the people had a different expectation for what the Messiah would be so he had to continue to teach before he could publicly reveal himself.

That was a huge secret for the disciples to keep—to know the truth about who Jesus was and yet they couldn’t shout it from the rooftops. In Luke 7:11-17, Jesus raised a boy from the dead and the people who witnessed this miracle believed he was just a great prophet sent from God. Even though they didn’t really know who Jesus was, they knew what they saw so they told everyone they knew what they had seen. Luke 7:17 says, “This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.”

As believers, we all know who Jesus is and what he’s done for us. We know how lost we were until we were redeemed, having done nothing to deserve the gift of salvation. Knowing what we know, we have to let the cat out of the bag, sharing the good news with everyone we meet.