James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Confession vs Repentance

I have always been very fond of confessing because of what James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” So because I read that verse, I believed it. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So as uncomfortable as it has been in my life to confess my sins to others- I did. Maybe not right away, but at least eventually! This I felt proud of, because I believed it. But what was harder to recognize was how common it was me to confess and not repent.

I got so used to confessing my sin after the guilt and shame. But I never moved forward to actually repent. This has been a lesson- I am learning now, after 15 years of following Jesus. I grew up in church and have read the bible for myself and Have even learned that repentance means to change your mind! And yet, it was this year that it hit me, after conversations and the Holy Spirit- that while confession was commonplace, repentance actually change was foreign to me. And it kind of makes sense, seeing repeated patterns of my life replay. So lately, I have been wrestling with what that actually looks like.

The greek word for repent in the Bible is metanoeo- to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sin’s. To think differently or to reconsider. I like the part where it says to abhor former sins. To be honest, I have made myself very comfortable with my sin. Even though there’s a proverb that describes a fool going back to his own folly is like a dog returning to his vomit ( Proverbs 26:11). The dog goes back to the thing its body expelled. The body rejected the food and yet it returns to it. Theres something about this visual picture that makes me sick. Yet why do I do this anytime I return back to my sin?

I think the reason the word ” abhorrence” sticks out to me is because I have gotten use to sinning. 1 John 3:9 says,“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.” Yet I call myself born of God, do I practice make a practice of sinning. I see why Paul says examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith ( 2 Corinthians 13:5a). In Psalm 1:1,

1 Blessed is the man^[a]
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
² but his delight is in the law^[b] of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.

As these scriptures flood my mind, I find I have many thoughts & questions come to mind. So long I have longed for the world. I have been jealous of the wicked and wanted what they wanted. I have felt lately and especially in my early 30s wondering if following God in my early twenties was worth it. I say that because at 34 years old single and childless- I feel my youth is behind me and only fleeting with each passing year. I have grieved the loss of nearly 15 years single: no relationship, no marriage and no children. I have grieved what feel like I gave God my youth and I have nothing to show for it

Or are my gifts and blessedness hidden? Do i believe the verse above to be true that happy or blesse dis the one who hates the counsel of the wicked but delights in the law of the Lord? Do I not feel blessed because I haven’t meditated on his words but on the words of man ,the words of my own self-critic. Do I beleive blessedness should be like the world? Do I delight in his word?

To be honest, I haven’t. Instead I have grown weary of doing good, tired really! And the questions that remain will I believe the word of God that I could be happy by delighting in god and his word alone?Could I be too consumed in my misery that I missed the blessedness that came with the obedience?

For now i have no resolve except to wrestle with changing mind to align with the truth of the bible!