These are my Confessions

Here, you will not find my confessions, as my title suggests, but given the subject of today's blog post I just couldn't help referencing some Usher.  These are, however, my thoughts about my confessions.

This past week for class we read a chapter from Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline on confession dun dun DUN!!!  This is one of those practices that I knew was inevitable, yet one that I dreaded.  I know I'm a sinner.  Everyone else knows I'm a sinner.  So why do I have to get into the nitty gritty details?  There must also have been some part of me that was in denial of God's knowledge of my sin, because I was even afraid and ashamed to lay them before Him.  But Foster shed a light on confession that I had never seen there before.  Confession is difficult, shameful, and takes a great deal of humility.  But it's not all bad.  In fact, the reward is worth the pay.  That reward being instant forgiveness.  I remember a professor describe it as "spiritual amnesia" on God's part.  Not only does God forgive our sin when we repent of it, but He literally forgets it.  Now, that may sound like a weakness or an imperfect characteristic of God, but it's far from it.  It's a strength.  The most forgiving person can't push a wrong so far out of the way that they literally forget it.  And that's what God does when we come to him with a repentant and confessing heart.  Even the most humanly abhorrent sin is forgiven.

That sounds comforting, right?  Well it's easy to say it, but for me, it was whole other thing when it came to practicing it.  Foster says that one of the things essential for true confession is sorrow.  Sorrow for the sin you have committed.  I certainly had that one down.  I was pretty embarrassed when I laid my confessions before God.  But the other thing that Foster said was essential to confession is a desire to turn from that sin.  And if you don't have that desire, then you should pray for the desire of that desire.  I was sorrowful for my sin, but there was also that depraved part of me the was sorrowful of letting go of that sin.  And so, now I pray for the desire to let go.  The desire to live a more holy life.

There was another component of this study that I didn't really have the guts to tread on.  That is, the practice of corporate confession; sharing your confessions with another believer.  The most attractive aspect of this particular practice was the ability to physically hear the forgiveness of God through the mouth of another believer.  But honestly, it was a practice I was not yet ready take part in.  Before, I hadn't really explored confession with God, so I thought it better to bare my heart first to my Maker.

 Master of confession I am not--much more of a novice.  But like any true disciple of God I'm learning, and growing, and experiencing God's faithfulness in new ways every day.