Re-thinking Confession
My pastor preached on Sunday and said that when we stop learning, we start concluding. This got me thinking about confession and its place in opening us up to learning, again.
A few months ago I finished some research on how listening and speaking can help us give new meaning to our lives. (Maybe some of us can think of a time we were sharing a story about a problem and suddenly the light clicked on about how to handle the problem or what the problem was about....) Some counselors describe their clients as having lives, or life-stories, that are "stuck." They have lost the plot of their life. By speaking about their stories, though, and having them listened to and interacted with, the clients' stories, or lives, began to unstick. As their stories began to unstick, they can move forward and progress.
James 5 urges us to confess our sins and pray to be healed. When we think about the benefits of speaking and listening to one another, it is no wonder that Christians have considered confession a discipline. I think we have to expand our thinking on confession: Confession doesn't have to be about our deepest and darkest sins, it can be about any way that we have become "stuck" in life:
"I'm no longer seeing my job as an act of worship."
"I have lost the point of building-up and encouraging my wife."
"I have given up on my husband."
"I just don't care about much anymore."
All of those statements (and more) are confessions of being "stuck." Confessing it--speaking it out--is the first step to getting unstuck. Confession opens the door for God to start working on those places where we are stuck. (And always follow confession with prayer because the point of confession is not just venting, but healing.)
A few months ago I finished some research on how listening and speaking can help us give new meaning to our lives. (Maybe some of us can think of a time we were sharing a story about a problem and suddenly the light clicked on about how to handle the problem or what the problem was about....) Some counselors describe their clients as having lives, or life-stories, that are "stuck." They have lost the plot of their life. By speaking about their stories, though, and having them listened to and interacted with, the clients' stories, or lives, began to unstick. As their stories began to unstick, they can move forward and progress.
James 5 urges us to confess our sins and pray to be healed. When we think about the benefits of speaking and listening to one another, it is no wonder that Christians have considered confession a discipline. I think we have to expand our thinking on confession: Confession doesn't have to be about our deepest and darkest sins, it can be about any way that we have become "stuck" in life:
"I'm no longer seeing my job as an act of worship."
"I have lost the point of building-up and encouraging my wife."
"I have given up on my husband."
"I just don't care about much anymore."
All of those statements (and more) are confessions of being "stuck." Confessing it--speaking it out--is the first step to getting unstuck. Confession opens the door for God to start working on those places where we are stuck. (And always follow confession with prayer because the point of confession is not just venting, but healing.)
posted by Aaron Perry at
11:05 AM
3 Comments:
I loved this post, Aaron. I agree whole-heartedly that it is so easy to get "stuck". I feel that the enemy targets our relationships, anyway, and one area that he does that is by making us feel isolated, without anyone with whom to communicate those "stuck" parts of our lives. I agree, too, that confession includes myriad of things, more than, like you said, only our deepest darkest sins.
How often does the Bible speak about fellowship and communication of truth, and confession? Since it is by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony that we overcome the enemy, we absolutely have to testify...not only those things that God has already done, but those "stuck" parts of ourself that He is revealing to us. That is when light begins to be shed in the darkness, and the Holy Spirit is free to begin the unsticking, healing process.
It's interesting because I almost wrote a follow-up to this post. I am glad that you focused on the "unsticking" parts, Elizabeth. Here's why:
James' exhortation is to confess and pray...and for good reason. Without change, the very act of speaking can become the point of reference. This means that if we are in a place of being stuck that speaking can begin to jar it loose, but without change, the speech itself can "harden" that story into a reference point. It's one of hte challenges of being a good listener...not listening to a stuck-story that a person does not want changed.
That's good stuff, AP. Hey, I'm going to Tim's wedding I think, so maybe we can play "where's whitey?" after all...
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