The thought of sitting in a booth as I spill all of my weekly sins makes me feel like vomiting. I mean, c'mon, isn't that a little legalistic in some sense. Well, that is what I used to think up until recently. Not that I would ever sit in a booth and spill my guts to a priest, but I have come to find that confession is a practice all Believers need to make a point of doing.Confession. A practice I have managed to sidestep, either advertently or inadvertently, for much of my life. I would ask for forgiveness from the Lord and others I have wronged, but rarely would I ever "confess" of anything, and there is a difference between asking forgiveness and confessing....as I have come to find.
The Lord put it on my heart to start confessing instead of just dealing with forgiveness. The process has been priceless. The Word is so clear about the need for this and for so long I have wondered why I have felt like I am carrying weights around with me (even when I'm not in the gym!). I aired some stuff this week. To God....To friends....and it has been truly refreshing. I even had a confessional with a couple of people I barely even know at Fellowship.
Sometimes I wonder why God doesn't just give us it all at once, but I'm not Him, and I probably couldn't handle every aspect of His will at once. It took Seminary for me to realize the importance of the Old Testament, it took the book Red Moon Rising for me to realize the epic importance of prayer, Urbana '03 to realize the importance of the Great Commission, and the summer of '06 to realize the importance of confession...which is in fact, itself, a confession.
1 comment:
I just recently started the practice of confession every night before bed too. And, your first two dreams you talked about before are almost exactly like dreams I had before I moved as well. That's a bit crazy, eh?
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