Have you ever tried to accomplish something out of the ordinary using a mirror and found it to be difficult? Everyday activities like brushing your teeth and hair or putting on makeup for ladies—daily routines—are natural because our brains have trained our muscle memory. But try using a mirror to guide you in a way you’re not used to or try backing up a trailer for the first time using your mirror, and it proves to be much more difficult. Every movement is completed by moving in an opposite direction than we’re used to.
This is also true of thoughts and actions related to spiritual disciplines. It goes against our nature to approach someone and confess we’ve done wrong (let alone calling it “sinful) unless we’ve been caught and have to fess up. When we believe and behave in ways that are different from God’s perfect ways, we’ve sinned and now live with conviction—our conscience telling us that we’re guilty. Our natural response is to excuse ourselves in one way or another but excusing ourselves only takes us deeper into denial which creates bigger problems for our conscience.
In Psalm 32 God presents a different picture that comes with lavish promises for blessing when we move in the right direction. However, the direction that is right is opposite to our nature and requires God’s help which, thankfully, He freely gives. God’s offers a perfect path which is an opposite way to us: confession. Confession is a beautiful pathway! At the beginning of the path is a signpost with an arrow pointing the way toward “BLESSED.” 1 John 1:9 and Psalm 32 are among the many passages in the Bible that point us to the wonderful promise of blessing for those who confess—acknowledge—their sin to the Lord.
If, at the beginning of the path, there was a “YOU ARE HERE” location on a map for those who avoid confession, it would read, “DECEIVED,” or “GUILTY,” because everyone of us is guilty. When we remain at the place of “deceived” or “guilty” our strength and joy wane. But when we walk the path of blessing through regular confession to God the Father, through our perfect High Priest Jesus Christ (Hebrews 4:14-5:10) who paid the penalty we’ve incurred for our sin, and in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, we are blessed by trusting Him.
Psalm 32 opens with the declaration that through confession—not covering our sin—we are blessed because we are forgiven. This wonderful Psalm ends with another declaration—that “steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord” (32:10). We have two possible directions: forward on the path of confession toward blessing undergirded by God’s steadfast love, or away from God’s blessing by hiding in the deception of our sin.
Just like performing tasks in a mirror, confession seems like admitting defeat when it is truly the only way to walk the path of blessing! Enjoy your walk of surprising joy on the path of blessing today.
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