Confession Part 1

                In my last post, I wrote about the importance of focusing on our hearts instead of our behavior.  I talked about Andy Stanley’s podcast series, It Came from Within, which is the same subject matter as his book Enemies of the Heart.  Most of the ideas in this post come directly from Stanley’s podcast.

                The first “enemy of the heart” that Stanley covers is guilt.  Guilt creeps into my heart when I wrong someone else.  Guilt is anger and disappointment with myself.  I messed up; I let myself down; I let you down; I let God down; I failed.  That anger and disappointment become a weight that I carry around, and if I don’t resolve my guilt, that weight will follow me into every future relationship.

One way that guilt manifests itself is that it’s difficult to please a guilty person.  A guilty person subconsciously says, “I let myself down.  And since I didn’t meet my own expectations, I can’t allow you to meet my expectations, either.”

Another way that guilt manifests itself is that it often keeps us trapped in destructive behaviors.  Stanley gives the example of a student who cheats on a test.  If the child keeps his action a secret, how likely is it that he will cheat again?  It’s definitely a good possibility, even if the child feels a lot of remorse over his previous action.  But if the child chooses to confess that mistake to his teacher, what are the chances he will cheat again?  Not very high, right?  Facing the consequences of his poor choice will change his heart and his future choices. 

I believe that unconfessed guilt plays a huge role in porn addictions and other addictive behaviors.  The small amount of research I’ve read so far is consistent in saying that you simply cannot break an addiction on your own.  You must confess.  You must involve other people in your journey.  Keeping secrets will condemn you to failure again and again.

If you haven’t guessed it yet, confession is the spiritual discipline that resolves our guilt.  As Stanley says, “Guilt grows in the darkness and is dissipated by the light.”  James 5:16 says,  “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

The modern church has stressed the importance of confessing to God and forgotten the importance of confessing to other people.  Of course we need to confess to God and make sure that our relationship with him is clear of secrets.  (Yes, I am aware of how silly that sounds.  But we all like to pretend we can hide things from God at times, don’t we?)  The confession that brings about life change, however, is made to another person.  Bringing secrets into the light breaks their power; keeping secrets hidden requires dishonesty, deception, and duplicity, and the secrets just grow heavier as time goes on.

Confession to other people is essential to breaking the power of guilt.  But there are a couple of issues that make confession very challenging. 

First, we don’t want to confess because we want to avoid the consequences of our actions.  If we confess something “big,” there will most likely be a lot of relational pain and trauma.  There may be financial repercussions.  In the example of the student who cheated, there might be suspension from school and receiving a poor grade.  We can usually predict the consequences of our actions, and we dread them.  We work hard to avoid them.  The thought of voluntarily facing those consequences is foreign and seemingly insane.

However, if we truly want to change our behavior and – more importantly – heal our hearts, facing consequences is necessary.  Every parent understands the importance of consequences.  They teach us and shape us.  We learn our lessons in life by “reaping what we sow.”  If we truly want to be the best people we can be, we must volunteer to face the consequences of our poor choices head on.

Consider, too, that the consequences of our actions are usually tangible, immediate, and impact a handful of people.  Compare that to the consequences of concealment, which are intangible and therefore often difficult to predict or observe.  It’s easy to pretend that concealment is not having any effect on us at all.  But guilt that lurks under the radar, undetected and/or ignored, impacts most of our relationships throughout our whole lifetime.  It lingers, and it decays, slowly and steadily.  Our secrets eat away at us, day by day, year by year.  Which set of consequences is better?

                But even when we realize that facing the consequences of our actions is truly better for us than concealment, even if we find the courage to face those consequences, most of us don’t have a safe place to confess.

                And that is a topic I will discuss further in my next post.  J

Heart

                The other day I called a stranger an idiot.  Sometimes, I cuss without even having a good reason.  And there are times when I speak pretty rudely to other drivers.

                Of course, the other drivers can’t hear me.  And I was also in my car when I observed the idiot, so he didn’t hear me either.  And I don’t actually say the cuss words out loud; I just think them in my head.  So – no harm, no foul, right?

                I recently listened to a podcast series by Andy Stanley called It Came from Within.  The underlying premise is that our behavior is driven by what is in our hearts.  All those things we do that make us say, “I don’t know where that came from!” – they come from our hearts.  Matthew 12:34:  “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”  Proverbs 4:23:  “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

However, we give most of our attention to our behavior instead of what’s going on in our hearts.  Andy Stanley calls this practice “applying a filter.”  We all know that calling someone an idiot is going to lead us into trouble, so we have a filter in place that prevents us from doing so.  But as soon as we are removed from that person, the filter goes down and out of our mouths come the words that our hearts have already applied – “What an idiot!”  A disturbing example of this is that, according to a survey quoted by Andy Stanley, a large percentage of people would murder someone if they knew they could get away with it.  (?!)  Their filters keep them from committing murder because they understand the consequences of such an action.  But their hearts – their hearts have it all planned out already.

This concept really informs the issue of parenting.  Ironically (providentially?), I began reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp right after listening to Stanley’s podcast.  The book is based on the same premise, with a specific focus on parenting.  When a child misbehaves, do we focus on his behavior or on his heart?  If we don’t teach our kids to examine their hearts, we run the risk of teaching them how to form a really good filter for their really ugly hearts.

I am not satisfied with a good filter, for me or for my son.  I’m glad I don’t cuss out loud, but I don’t want to cuss in my head, either.  I want a pure heart, from which flow kindness and respect, even for idiots.

This concept is what makes Christianity so freeing.  Christianity is not a long list of do’s and don’ts, despite the many variations of such a list.  Christianity is not a long checklist of good deeds necessary for membership:  random act of kindness (check, moving on), give 10% to the church (check, moving on), forgive someone who hurt you (oops, better skip this one for now)… 

Christianity is about giving your heart to Christ.  End of checklist.

Christ is not interested in filters.  He is interested in hearts.  He doesn’t care about changing your behavior.  He cares about changing your heart.  He knows that if you will allow him to transform your heart, your behavior will follow because, “everything you do flows from [your heart].”  Your heart is primary; behavior is secondary.

This is freedom!  This is the gospel of grace! 

It’s that simple, and yet so complicated.  It’s done in an instant, and yet it won’t be finished after a lifetime of progress.  It’s not a list of things that you HAVE to do, but a list of things that you will begin to do naturally as your heart is transformed, piece by piece.

You see, when we give our hearts to Christ, we imagine that we have given him the whole thing.  But each of us has some things lurking and hiding in the dark corners of our hearts.  We might not even know that those places are there, much less be aware of what is hiding there.   Those behavioral slips – those breakdowns of our filters – can be keys to showing us what we are still holding back, unsurrendered to Christ’s transformative power.   

We can use our behavior to monitor our hearts.  When that cuss word pops out, examine what’s going on inside.  If you can’t break your porn addiction, examine what’s going on in your heart.  If you really don’t like a particular person, ask your heart why.  You can try to improve your filter if you’d like – “I won’t cuss.  I won’t cuss.  I SWEAR I won’t cuss!”  But if you focus your energy on merely improving your filter, your battle for better behavior will never end.  (See Colossians 2:22-23.)  If we instead turn our focus onto our hearts, we can address the underlying problems and our behavior will change accordingly.

Note that I said “if you will allow him to transform your heart.”  It is Christ that transforms us, but it is our job to surrender.  And surrender can be hard.  Those hidden vices are stubborn and don’t like to be scrubbed out of our hearts.  Andy Stanley’s podcast series talks about four enemies of the heart and the spiritual exercises that are required to get rid of them.  The remedies are spiritual exercises, disciplines that require dedication and perseverance.  They aren’t easy, and they aren’t quick.  But they are absolutely necessary if you want to fully surrender your heart to Christ.

In addition to the podcasts, Stanley wrote a book on the subject, called Enemies of the Heart.  I downloaded the podcasts from iTunes, but it doesn’t look like they are available anymore.  However, my pastors have been doing a sermon series based on the book, which you can listen to at westportchurch.org.  I would highly recommend pursuing any of these resources to learn what the four enemies are and which spiritual exercises correspond to them.

I will tell you that the first enemy is guilt, and I plan to blog more about the subject in my next post.  J