Ready, Confess, Action

Dear God, I confess. Kbye.

What is the point of confessing? Is it so that a sound mind can be achieved? A guilty conscience can be alleviated? Is there an empty room after the dainty and dirty thoughts and emotions have been cleaned up, swept away, and polished?

Lately I’ve been neglecting blogging, or writing in general because my heart is heavy and when that happens, I refuse to process it. But as I write this, I’m aware that I am confessing my concerns to you and myself just as I have done to God. I am forced to process.

This morning I dreamed that I was in the swimming pool of a rich man with my brother. I was holding on to a giant, obnoxiously yellow floating device as if I had forgotten how to swim. A voice in my ear told me to hold my nose and go under water. So I did. When I could breathe no longer and came back up for air, it was storming. My brother was floating face down. In a panic I suddenly remembered how to swim. I swam to him and took him and brought him to land. We were suddenly in my back yard where I grew up and played as a kid. My parents were there, concerned. He seemed to be still alive. But as we towled him dry, he suddenly became a little girl. I looked in her face to realize that she resembled me. I more hastily dried her off.

I’ve been sinning more than usual and I feel its effects. Sinning is like lying: you have to keep doing it to cover up your previous errors, or so you think. In turn, it also affects your sense of entitlement. I want pleasure, I want gratification, I want vindication, I want love. These are mine, I’m entitled. But wait, what about everyone else? I’ve got to walk a straighter line, here. There is temptation, there is despair, and there is me, right in the corner of the page, that little stick figure. Temptation and despair are the storm, and then there’s me, trying to remember how to swim to save me from drowning.

As I’m faced with strange and new challenges, I must remember that’s it’s not only confessing that’s important. It’s not merely a list of rules in the bible that we’re supposed to follow. Does self gratification have a place in the perfect Kingdom which is made not just for you, but for others? Does vengeance have a spot in our place of rest? No. If any of these things did, the Kingdom would be chaotic and not perfect. Let’s not wait ‘til we die to start building this place. Confession is nothing if I don’t ask myself what’s in God’s will. Asking myself that question is what gives me direction as to what action I’m to take. I’m to pray for my enemies and not murder them in my own heart? Wow, that will be a daily struggle. Confessions are mere thoughts without action; thoughts that can be revisited comfortably. The action that follows confessing is what makes it uncomfortable. If there’s anything I’ve learned in this past year, God is not concerned with your comfort. He is more concerned about whether or not you drown in that pool. Sometimes the air is harsh on the lungs of someone who’s been drowning for a long time.