bitter sweet confession

he who covers his sin will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
proverbs 28:13

therefore confess your sins to one another praying for each other so that you may be healed.  the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
james 5:16

blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered…then i acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.  i said, “i will confess my transgressions to the lord” - and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
psalm 32:1, 5

the idea of confessing my sin to a friend has become a significant and difficult discipline in my life.  listening to confession has also become a significant and difficult discipline of my life.  in the past week i’ve heard confessions of adultery, hatred, rage, drug and alcohol addiction, pornography addiction, and eating disorders to name a few.

i don’t know if this is theologically correct or not, but as i begin to wrestle with the ideas of sin and shame i’ve come to this thought: sin is the junk that disconnects us from god, shame is the junk that disconnects us from each other.  many may disagree, but this is just the thought that’s currently going through my head.

we all have just bad crap that we’ve done in our lives.  we all have skeletons.  we all have secrets.  god knows them all but people don’t.  i believe that the practice of confessing sin to each other is lost.  talking with students, peers, and adults this past week has shown evidence to this.  rarely do we ever talk about the skeletons and secrets.  we live burdened lives, carrying around guilt and shame.  i believe that the only way to rid yourselves of guilt and shame is to confess them to someone.

in the verses above we find 3 things when we confess our sin: mercy, healing, and blessing.  isn’t that what we want for all of our sin and shame.  lets stop being fearful of judgment and rejection and start recieving mercy, healing, and blessing.

this blog is a little scatter brained, i know.  there’s just so much going on in my head in regards to confession right now.  take whatever you can from these thoughts.

enemies

“but love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.”
-luke 6:35

i think this command really emphasizes the difference between christian love and the worlds love.  everyone loves but how many people love their enemies.  maybe some people even love their enemies, but how many people are called to go and “do good” to them.  i wonder if the church really does this.

last night i was in a small group debate/discussion/argument (depending on what perspective you took on the conversatio) that debated this idea of doing good to those who are your enemies, doing good to those are are not of the same faith.  i posed the question, “is there ever a time in your life where you are supposed to stop DOING good to people?”  i do not mean is there a time that you can stop loving, but can you ever get to a point in your life where you should cease DOING good things for people.

i used two examples.  if you had a friend who was constantly getting drunk and asking you for a ride, do you ever stop giving him rides?  or if you have two gay friends that want to get married and they invite you to their wedding, do you attend or not?

the room was divided.  some stated that yes, you do continue to pick up your friend and you do attend the wedding (as long as the people invovled know where you stand).  the opposition stated that by giving a ride constantly and attending a wedding you’re supporting a sin and that we should never support sin.  i understand both sides.

what i came out of the conversation thinking about though, is that are motives to do good must always be there.  some people believe that doing good would be to not pick up your friend in hopes that he recognizes that what he’s doing is wrong.  the opposing side would say, yes you keep picking him up showing your love that way.  we may all disagree what “doing good” to people looks like, but i think it’s important to be reminded daily that we’re called to love and do good to all people.

and just for fun (if you feel comfortable answering), would you continue to pick up your friend?  would you attend the wedding?  or…does anyone have any other “gray-area” scenarios that i could wrestle with?

god’s…

grace amazes me this morning…