The Art of Telling God on Yourself.

Today Georges Boujakly offers one last entry (in two parts) on the reality that spiritual transformation is an inside job. Spiritual transformation, sin (the breaking of relationship of trust with God and others), confession, and forgiveness are terms that converge as the inside job the Trinity does in us.

Is confession a regular part of your relationship with God? Any specific ways you practice confession? If you are a follower of the Christian Way you have to address the question of sin.

Sin in us is easily verifiable (my sin is ever before me). We experience it with the five senses. We can deny sin but we can’t exterminate it from our lives. We can cry over it but we won’t eliminate it. We suffer from it but we can’t overcome it yet. We can fight its force within while we seek a holy and divinely ordained life. We can hope sin goes away, but it’s here to stay. We can wait for its disappearance, but sin is no Houdini. What we can do with sin is confess it and seek forgiveness. If we are serious about confession, we would seriously study David’s confessions in the following Psalms.

I am inspired by Eugene Peterson’s reflections in The Jesus Way: A Conversation of the Ways Jesus is the Wayon the following Psalms of Penitence. After this series on Spiritual Transformation I plan (God willing) to blog through Peterson’s book.

In Psalm 6, David drenches his bed with tears (6-7). A tears-soaked bed is evidence of deep sorrow and brokenness. In Psalm 56:8 he laments before God: “You have kept count of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record?” As the sweet smelling aroma of prayer that ascends to the nostrils of God, so do our tears stain eternal canvas of God’s forgiveness! It is good to cry before God as we join our sins with the sins of the world that surrounds us. The ancients used to speak of the gift of tears. Would you ask for this gift?

Frankly, each of us is surrounded with enough sinful human debris to sink a few Titanics. I count a dozen divorces of younger couples close to me underway as we speak (my understanding is that every divorce affects at least a few dozen people). Not only the divorces are bothering me but the immediate dating attachments people form, often when the divorce is not yet final. Not to mention the other sufferings parading before our eyes constantly.

What do you do with sin? Ours and others’? Tears, more tears, and more tears in confession. Because of our brokenness (cracked Eikons as Scot McKnight says) the Christian life is a school of confession and forgiveness.

In Psalm 32 David’s body wastes away since he decides not to declare his sin (5). Undeclared sin is physically unhealthy. In Psalm 38 his bones are diseased because of his sin. In Psalm 51 he begs to be cleansed and made clean again. In Psalm 102 he expresses assurance that God hears the despair in the isolation he feels because of sin. In Psalm 130 he waits (pays hopeful attention to God) to hear from God. In Psalm 143 he admits his dirt (no man living is righteous before thee) and pleads for a reprieve from judgment.

As David is imperfect so are we. The only reasonable response to sin is confession. Jesus’ way is the way of perfection, ours is of confession, of imperfection. There is only one effective remedy for sin Peterson says is forgiveness of sin. Only God can forgive sin. Nothing else will do.