Confession (pt 3)

In my experience, I have noticed that when the need arises for me to confess, I am met with formidable opposition. Just thinking about wording my failures to my wife makes my breathing labored, my heart pound, and my temperature rise. The effect on my mind and body is identical to how I react to an unexplained noise during the night that makes me wonder if someone has broken into our house.

Ironically, Sarah explained to me that when she realizes that I am about to confess, she reacts the exact same way.

In essence, when my sin is exposed, we both feel under attack.

We feel vulnerable

We feel defensive

A recent conversation with my brother has been very enlightening.

He said that when we sin there are two basic consequences; shame and fear (as illustrated in Genesis 3). For simplicity, I will focus on the shame aspect

When we sin, we are filled with shame. At this point there are only three options available to us.

Option 1: Rid yourself of the shame.

This option is often taken even before the sin takes place, but after it becomes clear that our sin is imminent. The only way to do this without exposing our sin, is to rationalize. It is possible for us to convince ourselves that what we have done (or what we are about to do) is not something to be ashamed of and so effectively eliminate the shame.

The main problem with this option is that it lowers our standard of holiness and further separates us from God who is the source of true healing.

Option 2: Hide and fix

This option is best illustrated by the change in parking habit I have noticed when our preacher returns the church bus to its spot. For quite some time he and I would always park the bus in the same manner, backed into the space with the passenger side facing the church entrance. A couple of weeks ago he made a wide right turn causing a driver in the right lane to crash into our passenger side. Since then, I have been parking the bus as I have been, but I've noticed that anytime our preacher drives the bus it is parked with the damaged side facing away from the church entrance where no one can see the damage. This will probably continue until we are able to get the bus fixed.

While this is great way to deal with damaged vehicles, it is completely unworkable for the damaged life. I have tried many times to conceal my sin so long that when I finally confessed my sin, it would only be as a distant memory when I used to be screwed up. As you can probably guess, I never achieved a great enough distance between myself and my sin to be able to confess without shame. In fact, it seemed that when I hid my sin and tried to fix it secretly, my sin only increased. While this option is better than option 1 in that it recognizes the sin and attempts to deal with it, it is not a viable option in dealing with our sin and subsequent shame.

Option 3: Expose

This option is the most difficult route to choose because it makes us incredibly vulnerable and breaks through our facades. More importantly, it is met with the most opposition because it is the ONLY route to true healing, and there are vast forces arrayed against us that do not want us healed.

And so it is that when we seek to expose sin, or when sin is exposed by our loved ones, we feel under attack. But if we have died to our sinful nature, we recognize that it is no longer we who sin, but it is the sinful nature within us. Therefore, when we confess our sin, we are standing with God agreeing that the sin is wrong and shameful, but we do not let it identify us. If we let our standing with God be the source of our identity, we can be free to confess our sin without the attack on our identity, for it is in Christ's righteousness that we stand.

Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ that rescues me from this body of death.

Please continue to share any thougths on the subject as I strive to better understand the nature of sin and confession.