Do you have anything you have been denying for just way to long?
Our daughter is learning the art of lying quite well. I don’t think she is so much lying intentionally, although she does sometimes. She just wants to be perceived as a good girl, she did what she was supposed to do. For example, when she comes out of the bathroom, we ask her if she has washed her hands. She says yes. We know she hasn’t because we didn’t hear the water run. She wants to be compliant so she says yes because it’s what she is suppose to say. When then say we didn’t even hear the water you need to go wash your hands. She comes back out with her hands still wet enough to convince us as she says, “See I washed them” and puts her wet hands on whatever part of us she can reach to prove her point.
Sometimes we deny something good we haven’t done or something bad we have done just to keep up appearances. In chap 31 Job is making a long list of the things deserving judgment if he had ever done them. This list includes looking on another man’s wife lustfully, giving worship to the sun or moon, not caring for the poor or strangers. The last one on his list is hiding his sin for the good standing if the eyes of others. He says,” if I have concealed my sin as men do, by hiding my guilt in my heart 34 because I so feared the crowd and so dreaded the contempt of the clans that I kept silent and would not go outside.”
The truth is it usually works out better if we have done something wrong we might as well some out with it. We are not going to be upset with Lorelai if she didn’t wash her hands, we will simply encourage her to go back in and wash her hands. She has learned this now and is more willing to admit she hasn’t or run back into the bathroom to wash her hands.
Sometimes we think if we just pretend we didn’t do the one thing that hurt that one person at that one place it will all just go away. The only thing we accomplish by not admitting the wrong we have done is lessening the relationship with the person we hurt. They know we did it, we aren’t actually hiding it from anyone. It’s the same way with those “secret sins.” God already knows we did them all we do by not admitting them to God or bring them out into the open is lessen our relationship with God.
We feel less inclined to speak to him, to share life with him and receive life from him. If we could just let those hidden things out to God and to the people around us whom they have affected a lot of wounds and relationships would be healed. Confess your sins one to another, says James, so you might be healed.
God knows we haven’t washed out hands, he didn’t heard the water running. He doesn’t want us to confess so he can punish us. He wants us to admit it so we can be cleansed and healed. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
May we find the freedom today to come out of hiding and how our relationships with God and each other deepened rather than lessened.
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