confession

Growing up Protestant, I never quite understood why my Catholic friends went to confession. It seemed embarrassing, difficult, and...well, quite honestly, it seemed fruitless. If Jesus forgave me, why did I need to tell someone what I'd done? Wasn't it enough that Jesus knew? I also remember growing up with anxiety problems and having a long-running relationship with guilt. Now, I'm not saying that ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys are the answer to anxiety and guilt—I mean, that's so Old Covenant. But I am saying that while confession may be embarrassing and difficult, it's definitely NOT fruitless.

While Isaac talked Sunday night about confession, I realized that there was some sort of floodlamp shedding light on my life. Why do I always do things out of guilt? Why do I try to work my way into good graces? Why do I feel like I have to trick people into liking me? Why do I have this underlying sense of anxiety? Let's switch the light on and see—oh, looky there. I'm not a confesser. I'm not one who takes my confession to anyone other than my Heavenly Father. There is something powerful in The Church that Christ gave us: community. And confessing to them is part of the deal.

While we were at Passion in our Community Group, Francis Chan was talking about confession. I'd been pressed hard by God the entire week with the word "holiness," and when Francis brought up confession, it seemed to be a very integral part of holiness. I immediately looked around and—as if there had been a large neon sign with a flashing arrow pointing to them—I saw two very close friends that I trust unquestionably. During the next break I asked them if they wanted to form a three-person accountability group. Long story short (too late, I know), they said yes, and it's been incredibly life-giving. But here's the point, which is also the funny part: I'm not really comfortable with confession yet. When it's my turn to lay out the stuff I need accountability for, I close my eyes, put my head down, make fists, and tell them what I need to tell them with a scrunched-up look on my face. And I don't open my eyes until I hear their loving voices. I'm pretty sure I'll get better at it though, because I'm learning that revealing who I am and then seeing that they still love me imparts massive amounts of freedom and understanding of the word grace.

I've learned something over and over during the past few years, but it often hits me like a water balloon at the most unexpected times: Following God isn't about sticking to a set of rules because he said so. It's about his love for us and if we live the way he instructs us to live, it gives way to freedom. Freedom to be exactly who he made us to be. Freedom to be happy. Isaac said that God gave us confession to say, "I want to take the image of God that is in you and make it whole." Simply put, confession catapaults us right into falling deeper in love with God. Which is precisely the point.

Isaac gave us a list for "coming clean" with someone. I want to include it because it seems immensely valuable.

1. Prayer Of Examen: God, where have I failed to love you and love others?
2. Inventory: (a good tool to use is the Ten Commandments)
3. Confess: Not only what I did, but how and why.
4. Prayer Of Repentance: I'm sorry, and help me to be sorry for the things I'm not sorry for.
5. Statement Of Release: God has heard you. You are forgiven. Christ is remaking you and you are now embraced in his arms.
6. Prayer Of Gratitude: (self-explanatory)
7. Post Confession: Is there anything I need to go fix? And ripping up my inventory list.

One thing Isaac shared I'd pretty much known in my heart for a long time, but I'd never put words to it. When he said it, his words clicked with that feeling I'd known in my heart, and it was beautiful like that moment that the sunrise bursts over the mountain and sheds a warm orange glow on the entire valley.

He said, "God not only forgave my sin, but he also forgave the guilt of my sin."

Amen, and hallelujah.

...and the greatest of these is love

Isaac brought us full circle in our Signs Of Life series this Sunday...after pursuing beauty by active faith, telling a different story with persevering hope, we look at our fellow human beings with unsparing love.

What exactly is unsparing love? I'm not sure we can really know—we're human after all. But Jesus told a story that teaches us to remember the last time we were in a ditch. What did love do then? When we see someone else's problem as our own, all of a sudden it takes on wildly different proportions. For some reason (I'm guessing The Fall, since this was an issue between Cain and Abel as well), we are very intent on our own needs, desires, issues; but we really gloss over the needs, desires, and issues of others—especially people we aren't in a family or a friendship with.

Deuteronomy 24:18 says, Don't ever forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and GOD, your God, got you out of there. I command you: Do what I'm telling you. Very few (if any) of us have truly pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps to get to where we are in life. We've had parents, friends, teachers, donors, strangers, acquaintances, coworkers. Someone has helped us do something at some point during our lives, and very likely we've been helped greatly. God is essentially saying, "Remember that time when you were in need? When you were overwhelmed? Tired? Lost? Lonely? Remember how I (or your mom or Joey or Rita) was there for you? Selflessly? Yeah. See that person over there? They are my creation. And they are just as desperate as you were. Be my hands and feet and go love that person unsparingly."

Unsparing love is realizing what Jesus did for me, and when I look at strangers, seeing my brother or sister—just as Jesus saw me.

So we sigh and sit back and think about what it means to show unsparing love to those in need...and we panic—thinking that we need to move to Bolivia and teach villages how to clean their water supply and tell them about Jesus. Sure, you can do that if it's your calling. But we can show unsparing love from right where we are.

Dar Williams wrote a song that says, "Every time you love just a little / Take one step closer, solving a riddle / It echoes all over the world." Unsparing love really does echo. If you pull someone out of the proverbial ditch, then when God says, "Remember when you were in a ditch?"...they have the answer to the next question—"What did love do then?" And when he says, "Go and do likewise," your unsparing love is their measuring stick. And it gets passed on, and on, and on.

What would the world be like if we all loved one another unsparingly? No one would go hungry. No one would be riddled with anxiety. No one would be lonely or afraid. If we all loved one another unsparingly, we would all be confident that in our times of need, someone would take care of us.

So let's start now. Let's start here. If someone is sad or frustrated, let's offer words of encouragement. If someone is overwhelmed, let's offer relief. If someone is in financial need, let's all 175 of us give $1 and help that person pay his or her rent. The Barnabas project is not going to work on its own—it is merely a tool, a tool to help need find resource and resource find need. We're going to have to be the ones to love.

Let's love. Unsparingly. And watch it echo all over the world.