As a teen, even this cursory awareness faded as a sense of invincible pride took the place of childhood innocence. I was much “holier” than my peers. I had the Christian life down pat. I knew scriptures and was in church every Sunday. When I married, I suspected my husband was a very lucky man to find a great catch like me.
More years; more change. Children and trouble sanded through the veneer of pride and the Christian life became a whole new ballgame. I was finally forced to look at my character and admit the Christian life was not just difficult; it was impossible. At long last, I recognized sin for what it was and found the awful stuff sticking to me like globs of black tar. The situation might have proved desperate had it not been for a cheap, blue, plastic radio.
Hundreds of miles from family, isolated in a country farm house, surrounded by the boredom of babies and endless chores, I found the soothing voices from the blue box offered something I desperately needed: hope. I can still hear them in my head: J. Vernon McGee; Theodore Epp, Billy Graham. They pointed the way to a different, clean life and I wanted to follow.
One principle they taught me was the art of daily confession. They said every night I should look back over the day and identify each sin. These weren’t hard to find: Harsh words that fell out of my mouth unbidden. Arrogant thoughts and day-dreams of grandeur. Slapping around my daughter in a fit of temper over minor infractions. Avoiding household responsibilities. The list was long. Since the bathroom was the only private room in the house, I spent hours kneeling by the edge of the old bathtub going over the day’s failures one at a time.
This morbid introspection could have led to depression and hopelessness if it had it not been for the voices coming from that blue, plastic radio. Their guidelines were the life preserver that kept me afloat.
First, they taught me confession must be specific. If a sin has no name and I could not give a concrete example of where I had committed it that day, guilt feelings were to be ignored. No floating guilt or general misery allowed.
Second, no sin was to be confessed twice. Once confessed, the subject must be dropped. Even if I had to confess the same sin a dozen times, each new confession must be connected to a specific, new behavior. No rehashing of past events once they have been placed at the feet of the Savior.
Third, they said I should never get off my knees without saying, “Thank You.” God promised to remove my sins as far as the East is from the West and no matter how I felt about the situation, I should thank Him trusting that He was faithful to His word.
At first the exercise was uncomfortable. It was like asking God to take out my daily garbage. But, I desperately wanted to be free from the internal lions of guilt tearing me apart so I kept coming back and falling by the edge of the tub each night.
After several weeks my daily embarrassment morphed into something new and the change unnerved me. It was like the discomfort of blinking in the sunlight when you’ve become accustomed to the dark. My daily list was getting shorter and the brevity bothered me. Was I forgetting something? I was tempted to confess some detail for which I felt no guilt just to show God I was serious!
Finally.—it must have been months later—I knelt by the tub one night and could not think of a single thing to confess. I knew there were weak character traits that simply hadn’t found opportunity for expression because it was an easy day. But when I honestly evaluated the previous 24 hours no sense of guilt lurked anywhere. It felt so good I wanted time to stand still just to enjoy the clean sensation a bit longer.
Months have turned into years and years to decades as my sin list grew shorter or longer depending on my days. There have been long stretches when I forgot daily evaluations and even times when I forgot prayer, but always the Lord has drawn me back to the basic principle of daily confession.
Radio’s no longer come as large, blue plastic boxes; i-pods and digital broadcasting have changed the world. And, the types of sin I find myself confessing is different, too. I think it has something to do with growing older. Today, most often I need to confess opportunities I ignored, unloving words, or times when self-indulgence is chosen over ministry. Still, I keep coming back to the simple system of confession and acceptance of forgiveness I learned so long ago. It’s the only way I know to remain emotionally free. That’s a prize worth having!
