Confession Is Good For The Soul

If we confess out sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 RSV

There is a well-known story of some men in Scotland who had spent the day fishing. That evening they were having tea in a little inn. One of the fishermen, in a characteristic gesture to describe the size of the fish that got away, flung out his hands just as the little waitress was getting ready to set the cup of tea at his place. The hand and the teacup collided, dashing the tea against the whitewashed walls. Immediately an ugly brown stain began to spread over the wall. The man who did it was very embarrassed and apologized profusely, but one of the other guests jumped up and said, “Never mind.” Pulling a pen from his pocket, he began to sketch around the ugly brown stain. Soon there emerged a picture of a magnificent royal stag with his antlers spread. That artist was Sir Edwin Landseer, England’s foremost painter of animals.

This story has always beautifully illustrated to me the fact that if we confess not only our sins but our mistakes to God, He can make out of them something for our good and for His glory. Somehow it’s harder to commit our mistakes and stupidities to God than it is our sins. Mistakes and stupidities seem so dumb, whereas sin seems more or less to be an outcropping of our human nature. But Romans 8:28 tells us that if they are committed to God, He can make circumstances work “for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.”

When you bake a cake, you put in raw flour, baking powder, soda, bitter chocolate, shortening, etc., none of which taste very good by themselves, but which work together to make a delicious cake. And so with our sins and our mistakes—although they are not good by themselves, if we commit them in honest, simple faith to the Lord, He will work them out His own way and in His own time make something of them for our good and His glory.

Our Father and our God, please take the ugly stains and disjointed parts of my life and create from them something beautiful to praise and glorify You. Without Your miraculous hand, O God, my life could only be a pile of rubbish, not fit for anything worthwhile. Perform a miracle in my life, Father, in the name of Jesus, the worker of miracles. Amen.

Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).