What Should I Confess?
Other Posts in this Series
After reflecting on what I wrote yesterday about confession, I spent some time this morning doing a reality check on myself. I confessed, first to myself, my short-comings, my faults, and my sins. This was more than my typical listing of the obvious things I had done wrong the day before. Instead, it involved a difficult investigation of my attitudes, ongoing sins, and the misleading exteriors I present to the world.
It was, indeed, a difficult morning. However, when I had finished with this personal confession, it felt like a load had been taken off my shoulders. In Psalm 32 David talks about what happens to him when he refuses to face his sin.
When I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
(Psalm 32:3-4)
The same occurs for me. I wrongly assume I am somehow protecting myself by not confessing my sins to myself and to God. In the end, however, we live a life burdened by the lies we live. Confessing our sins to ourselves opens up the possibility for a lighter load and renewed strength.
The answer to the question, ”What should I confess?” then, is “All of the truth about yourself.” God wants us to confess the fact that we hurt someone with our words or that we took what didn’t belong to us. God is concerned about those sins that are evident and obvious. God, however, is also concerned with those sins that are not so evident and not so obvious, even to us.
God wants to hear us talk about the way we sometimes put others down to protect our own fragile ego. God wants us to be honest about our pride that causes us to talk too much about ourselves or fish for compliments. God wants us to confess our envy that moves us to materialism and away from Divine worship. God desires that we admit the walls that we build around ourselves to keep people from seeing what we are really like. God wants us to realize the self-righteous attitudes that invade our minds and cause us to look down on other people.
The honest picture I painted of myself this morning to God was ugly. Yet, it was also quite freeing as I accepted God’s forgiveness and took the courageous steps to forgive myself. David and I agree:
Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. (Psalm 32:2)
When I am courageous enough to face the ways I deceive myself and God, and confess those things openly, my spirit is freed from deceit and God holds nothing against me.
Comments
Share your thoughts...
