Confession

My sweet baby Chase!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to react correctly every time? Isn't that an odd thought? To know that no matter what came my way, I would be able to react in a righteous way. To react in a way that would honor God every time. Wouldn't that be amazing?! Just recently my youngest child, Chase, who is 8yrs. old, has gone through a period when he felt the need to confess everything from picking his nose to where he was in his thought life regarding "specific" words, and his thoughts concerning me when he was in trouble (I have to tell you, they weren't pretty). I thought we were past this blessed time until he started confessing everything to me again just in the last week. When I say everything, I'm not kidding. My friends, April and Bobby, know to what lengths my Chase will go to clear his conscience. Just tonight, he "confessed" to me that he felt guilty about putting chips on his sandwich at lunch today. You see there is a rule at his school that you can't play with your food. He was afraid that he was breaking that rule. And yet he still chose to do it. I asked him why he feels the need to confess all sin to me, and he said something profound that only a child of 8 could grasp. He said, "It just makes my heart feel better." How many times have I confessed to Jesus areas I thought I had really messed up? How many times was my reason to "make my heart feel better"? Instead, what if I confessed in order to change my heart, not just make it feel better. Would that change lead to different reactions? Would that change allow me to react in a righteous way, when things go wrong? John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." So if we confess, the unrighteousness will be washed away which leaves us with the ability to react in a righteous way. Sounds like grace to me. Maybe that is what I need to tell Chase. Maybe I need to tell him a little more about grace and that it is not just his sister's middle name. Hmm, I guess it just might be possible to react righteously.

In His Grace and Mercy...