Child-like Confessions
This week we of our Lenten Journey to Jerusalem we focus on Confession. They say confession is good for the soul, but it sure doesn't feel like it.
Confession is not a term many of us are comfortable with, let alone familiar. For most, confession comes at a price. If we admit our wrongs, that requires us to change how we act in the world. Confession proclaims, whether private or public, full knowledge of our actions…full knowledge of the difference between right and wrong. If we know the difference between what is right and what is wrong, then we are compelled to act in right ways.
Children are often strongly urged into confession by parents intent on teaching life's difficult lessons. They grudgingly admit their wrong-doing and promise to do otherwise in the future. Parents hold on to these moments in order to remind their young when they see them heading back into negative behaviors. This is a natural part of the growth process for children and it is a serious responsibility for parents.
As children grow into teens and become more capable of abstract thought they begin to look for ways out of confession…excuses, blame, and pleas of ignorance or misunderstanding. Their goal now is to avoid confession, at all costs, so they are not required to grow through those difficult behavior changes. At this time, parents put on more pressure…they are supposed to.
As we grow into adults, confession either becomes a voluntary action or becomes a foreign concept to be avoided. As people of faith, we are called into confession by a greater force than any parent could ever exert. God calls us to confession for the same reasons parents call their children into admitting their transgressions. We will not grow and become our best selves without admitting those wrongs and learning new patterns of behavior in the world. We cannot take on our relational role with God to be the hands, feet, eyes, ears, mouth and heart of Christ in the world until we admit our failings…hand them over to God so we no longer carry these burdens.
Free will…that gives us the option of turning lose of these weights or to continue carrying them alone. Grace is freely given as the greatest act of God's love. We need not ask for it, it is there for the taking. The struggle most of us face is that to take on grace, we must first put something else down. Why do we insist on carrying such a weighted load when grace offers so us much more? Perhaps the burden is something more familiar to us than grace. Perhaps the shame that comes with admitting our transgressions is too high a price to give for grace.
Lift your eyes, folks! There is good news to proclaim. You need not carry your burden or your shame. The price is paid. Grace costs us nothing. Look to God and hand over that which weighs you down. God already knows our sin and loves anyway. This love is called unconditional love, but I would argue that there might be a condition attached…the condition is placed there by us, not by God. The condition is that we have to let go and open ourselves up to receive that great love.
Confess and make yourself open to that which is so freely given!
Blessings,
Tracy