What is there to confess and why is God interested in us fessing up?
Lately, I’ve been doing some soul searching and dug up old issues that have been sitting on the shelf gathering dust and cobwebs. These issues were shelved a long time ago. They have not been properly addressed because I did not know how to voice them. When I finally sat down and wrote them into my journal it took me hours to find the words. However, once I went the extra mile and worded the agony and pain, assessed the wrong of the situation and my involvement in it something magical happened: By acknowledging my bad choices I gained a better understanding of myself. All of a sudden I could see why I did what I did; and by exposing the root cause of the problem the likelihood of repeating those bad choices was clearly diminished. I could finally let go of this portion of my past.
Not finding peace has a lot to do with hiding from ourselves. I kid you not, subconsciously we think we can lie to ourselves or hide certain aspects of our life by just by ignoring them. Well, every lie is an illusion. We can try to lie to ourselves, but deep down in our bones we know the truth.
Suppressed bad memories will somehow resurface. And unfortunately, as controlling as we think we are, resurfacing memories are out of our control. They will flood our dreams at night, they will initiate an emotional outburst – which will come across inappropriate, because people cannot read our memory banks and then put two and two together. Unaddressed issues become ugly issues. They can lead to physical abuse, suicidal tendencies, mental illness and /or any other kind of ailment. To spare us this nightmare, God asks us to confess.
Confessing is a blessing!
Remember how Jesus addressed His followers after He rose from the grave? He said (Luke 24:36):
“Peace be with you.”
The outcome of confession is peace. We accept what happened, allow ourselves to grieve, rise out of the ashes and move on while Jesus, the Son of God, speaks peace over us.
Wherever you are, go in peace! That’s God’s wish for every one of us.
