Confession (a Greatest Hits article)
This post is part of a five-article series featuring the most popular articles since the launch of Horizons Resources.
"Lord, I don't know how we're going to do this. The world has hardened the hearts of these kids, and I don't know what I could ever say or do that will fix that. Help me." I mentally utter the same small prayer each week as I prepare the large, impersonal, concrete and wood room to feel as much like home as it can. The people who will soon be coming up the stairs to meet with me and the few other leaders will be bringing bleeding wounds of all shapes and sizes, internally and externally, hoping that something in this room, something about this group will help them feel a little more whole again. Souls that have endured far more than I could ever imagine in their less-than-two decades of life will file in as I internally pray that life change could somehow occur. This is a snapshot of my first twenty minutes leading the Landing each Friday night, a glimpse into what those nights have looked like for more than a year. Each week we open with prayer and song, have a laugh and eat some less-than-nutritious food, then get down to business.
Our lessons are short and packed with questions and discussion, but it’s what happens at the end of the night that blows me away. It's where I see God work and where I see healing happen. As the guys make their way downstairs, the ladies make a circle of chairs and prepare to share their hearts. I start, "Hey, I'm Teracyn, I'm a grateful believer in Jesus Christ who struggles with depression, anxiety, and childhood trauma." Immediately my vulnerability is apparent to them, and as we go around the circle, each girl chooses to be as vulnerable as they want to be that week. Our first question out of the gate is one that would send a lot of adults, including myself a year ago, running for the high hills: "What did you all struggle with this week?" But as I share how I have fallen short, almost all of them follow suit, humbly talking about their personal battles, some that have never been voiced outside of that room.
At the end we pray, sometimes with tears but always with heart. Sometimes those prayers sound something like this, "Lord, we know that we have fallen short this week, and we come to you knowing that we fall short all the time, and we ask that you would forgive us for those times. We love you and trust you, please help us to grow and do better this week and bring us safely back here next week, amen." And that's it. Within what feels like a blink, we are done and the students are gone until next Friday. An hour and forty minutes never feels like it’s enough to make an impact. And yet, the kids I see in front of me each week are not the students I first met last year. It may feel like our work is in vain in the moment, but looking back, God's faithfulness is written all over it.
If We Confess
How can some of the most hardened, hurt kids in one of the most drug addicted counties in the entire country be changing so drastically for the better? The answer is something that, even as adults, most of us have yet to make a habit out of. It’s Step Seven in the Celebrate Recovery Twelve Steps: Confession. We humbly asked him to remove all our shortcomings and forgive our sins. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and will forgive us of our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
When I first learned the CR steps, this one did not stick out in my head as particularly important - until I started seeing God work through the Landing with a spotlight almost solely on this one verse. Without knowing it, God was showing us how to lay down our hurts, habits, and hangups - and showing us what that really meant. We cared about what the kids had to say and share, and because of that they wanted to keep sharing and laying their sins and hardships down. And slowly we have all shed layers of grime off of our hearts.
Somewhere in my adult life, I began to think that my small I’m Sorrys to God throughout the day were enough to keep me close to him, that those little words were plenty enough to fix my hurts and shortcomings. I completely believed that with those little I'm Sorrys and a Bible verse or two a day I would, without a doubt, keep my spiritual car on the tracks. But God doesn't want shallow apologies like the ones we gave to our parents as kids when we didn't clean our rooms in time. He wants confession, conversation, relationship and healing.
Never Too Far Gone
The Landing students have it right, and they constantly remind me of that truth. Whatever their past, whatever happened that week in their lives, whatever habit they haven't yet overcome, they humbly come and sit, slowly opening little cracks and crevasses for God to work in and through, confessing one by one all of the things that have burdened their lives and letting Jesus forgive them and heal their hurt. It doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen. And all of us in some way or another need him to do the same thing in our hearts. He doesn't need our apologies, he doesn't technically need anything, but he desires to take the burdens of our hearts and make us whole and new, if only we stop and genuinely ask.
Confession is beautiful and cleansing. It can radically change our relationship with ourselves, the past, the people around us, and more than anything, our relationship with Christ. There are never too many things for him to work on, and you can never be too far gone. It just takes pausing, confessing, and letting the Author and Perfecter of our faith heal our nasty wounds, and take the bag of sin and death that we love to carry so much. Slowly, in that humble stance of confession before God, we let go of what we think we need, and let him give us what we really need.
