I have a confession to make.  

If I stop right now and give you ten seconds to notice how that sentence makes you feel, what happens? Let’s try it. Here’s ten seconds to think about this phrase – I have a confession to make.  

Insert ten seconds. 

Okay, here’s what I bet you felt. You probably felt excited, eager, relieved, calm, as if a breath you’d been holding in too long was finally allowed to exhale so you could relax, right? No? I’m being silly, of course. If you’re like me, confession brings up feelings that fit more in the category of worry and fear instead of comfort or relief. Why might that be?  

Yesterday in a meeting with fellow writers for The Cultivating Project, we were talking about some of the themes that we wanted to focus on in upcoming issues. Over the course of a year, we tend to write around a progression of topics. Lancia Smith, who leads Cultivating, is very deliberate about designing the publication both as a ministry to readers and as a ministry to the writers. We’re each being asked to explore topics as a way to challenge and develop our own life of faith through reflection and the discipline of writing the essays that make up each issue. Lancia has said many times that The Cultivating Project is, first, a discipleship fellowship meant to raise up writers. Here’s an excerpt from the website: 

The Cultivating Project is a nurtured fellowship of Christian writers and makers committed to cultivating holy character, deep-rooted community, and excellence of craft. Together we offer a type of Pilgrim’s Inn through our publications, workshops, and products ~ each one made to inspire, strengthen, and give courage to our fellow sojourners.

As a part of that, we were meeting yesterday to discuss our current topics, and a lot of folks have been struggling. We all carry so many wounds, so many fears and insecurities. It can be so discouraging on the one hand, yet on the other hand what a comfort it is to discover yourself nowhere near as alone as you had thought. 

So, as our little fellowship of Cultivators confessed our common fears, something wonderful began to emerge. Voices of courage and support stirred and declared another reality – belovedness was assured, giftedness and calling were restated, capacity for beauty and the capability to bring about, by God’s grace, good nourishing things was acknowledged and affirmed. 

Do you notice what happened? We confessed fears and faults to one another, and what followed was an outpouring of courage and possibility. But here’s the strange thing I want to say about confession in this instance – it’s that both sides of that experience – the fears and the encouragement – were instances of confession. 

Earlier, when I gave you ten seconds to notice the feelings that come up when the word confession is mentioned, my assumption is that those feelings were most likely negative. At least, primarily negative and worrisome. I wonder if that might be because confession is primarily associated with sin? For most of us, confession means, maybe even exclusively, to acknowledge something terrible about ourselves. By association, then, confession is a fearful word.  

What I want to point out though, is that it is a beautiful word. Let’s be a little curious about it, and look closely.  

In Scripture, confession comes from a greek term (homologeó) that has two parts. The first part (homo) means ‘same’ and the second part (logeo) means speech. So confess is a word that simply means to say the same thing together. The word, in itself, is not negative. For instance, if I say, “I want a strawberry milkshake” and you say “Yes, you do want a strawberry milkshake.” You just made a confession. You and I are saying the same thing together.  

Just this morning, I noticed that a usage like this was already sitting right under my nose in a famous passage about salvation, Romans 10:9. That passage says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” What feelings arise from that usage of the word confess, I wonder? My guess is that the phrase “I have a confession to make” and “If you confess that Jesus is Lord” call up two pretty different emotional responses. But it’s the same word. 

To confess that Jesus is Lord is to join your voice to God’s and say the same thing together about Jesus. God has said, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him.” And to confess is to simply say, “Yes, I agree with you God. I’ve heard what you’re saying about Jesus and I’ll say it with you.”  

In other words, confession is simply to agree with God about reality. It’s to admit the truth about the way things are, in general. If I say, “water is wet,” and you say, “Yep, it’s some of the wettest stuff around,” we’ve just made a good confession and we’re saying the same thing together about reality.  

Now, here’s where sin comes in. We are out of harmony with reality, and if we’re going to be healed we’ve got to get in touch with what’s actually going on. God is being honest with us about the way things are, and confession is a move we make towards honesty. If God is saying, “Friend, you’re deathly ill,” and I say, “I’m fine,” then, I’m not participating in reality, and I have no way of accessing healing. But, if I confess and say, “I do feel really terrible, please help me,” now, I’m in touch with reality and all the resources of God are within reach. Confession is no fun, in that sense, but it puts us in touch with reality, so we can be cared-for by our Healing Redeemer.  

But, remember, confession works the other way too. If God says, “You are very beautiful, worthwhile, dearly loved, capable of incredible good, gifted for good works, washed clean and joined to the family of God,” then the right response is also to make a confession in the joyful sense. God is calling us to confess, meaning to say along with him the same thing he is saying about us, the same thing he says is the state of reality, to say, “I confess together with you, God, that I am beautiful, worthwhile, dearly loved, capable of incredible good, gifted for good works, washed clean and joined to the family of God.” 

That is also confession. Here’s ten seconds to notice how saying “Amen” and agreeing with God about the good things he’s saying about us feels. 

Insert ten seconds. 

God is telling us the truth about reality, about our situation, about ourselves. Confession encompasses all of that. Confession is, of course, to agree with God about our rebellion and woundedness, but it’s much bigger, because our sin and shame have been, not minimized, but swallowed up by God’s love. Confession, ultimately, calls us to hear God’s blessing over us, spoken through Jesus – the Word himself – and to allow ourselves to fully and deeply receive it. 

We honor the love we’re given by simply receiving it. If God says, “You’re so precious and desirable that I would lay down my life for you,” you can take him at his word. If, as the Scriptures say, “the king is captivated by your beauty,” you can confess with God that (bizarre and unlikely as it feels) this is, indeed, the case.

A Prayer for Nearness

by Amy Maleskeit

Oh God, I confess that I do not know how to confess. Thank You that this is not a problem for You. So come and open my eyes to see You, and to see with fresh eyes the story You are writing, to see myself and my story in light of Your redemption, hope and goodness. In light of You, who are most Real. Thank you that, because of the cross, my pain has a place to go. 

Spirit of Jesus, You are not just with me, but in me. As You speak words of truth to my heart, I choose to align myself with them, and to name these real things into this beautiful, broken world, and to the hurting people around me. I welcome your nearness today.