CONFESSION - so the saying goes - is good for the soul. We’ve all said or done things that we later regretted but did not own up to. It may have been something trivial, such as eating all the hard-centred chocolates in the box and leaving the soft-centred ones for the rest of the family, or more serious, such as telling a lie that has got someone else into trouble.
A sense of guilt can build up in our minds and
memories until it becomes a burden of gigantic proportions. Some people
cope by ignoring it. Some hope it will go away. Others completely deny
the event ever happened - even to themselves.
Human nature hasn’t changed much through the
centuries. In Old Testament times, people were just the same: a mixture
of goodness, of trying to be good and of sometimes failing to be good.
Describing his own shortcomings, the psalmist prays to God: ‘When I
refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day
long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me’ (Psalm
32:3,4 New Living Translation).
But instead of letting the past rule his life, he
does something about it. He confesses his wrongdoing to God and seeks
forgiveness.
He contrasts his previous life with the joy of being
forgiven: ‘Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose
sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord
has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!…
Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my
guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And
you forgave me! All my guilt is gone’ (32:1-3).
Sharing his burden of guilt with God through penitence and confession was definitely good for the psalmist’s soul.
Sometimes the person we find it hardest to forgive is
ourselves. But being honest before God and facing our past - with all
its regrets and ‘what-might-have-beens’ - are the first steps to
receiving divine forgiveness and the Almighty’s help to make a new
beginning.
UK & Ireland War Cry June 2013
Photo: War Cry Library
UK & Ireland War Cry June 2013
Photo: War Cry Library
