Confessions of Matt Parker

I have a confession to make. I read teenage girl novels. I read all of the Twilight novels. I’m working on Hunger Games. I am not a teenage girl. And, get ready for this, I enjoy them. I realize that they are not the best crafted stories ever. I know that they are predictable and often trite. But I like to read them. I don’t know why, but I do, and always have. I read Anne of Green Gables and Pride and Prejudice when I was 12.

I’m glad to get that off my chest. Now you know one of my deepest, darkest secrets, and one of Misha’s favorite things to tease me about.

Confession is good for the soul.

I’ve not really been all that good at confession. I’m a fairly private person, and I want people to think well of me, to a fault. So I try not to offend against your expectations, and when I do, I try not to let you know about it. It’s also tempting, if the offense comes to light, to pass the blame on to someone else, even the person I’ve offended.

The older I get, the more I have the opportunity to practice confession. And when I do, I get sweaty palms and that jittery feeling in my chest, because when I confess for real, it’s not about a silly book I’m reading, it’s about things that require the giving and receiving of forgiveness, things that have the potential to harm relationships and hurt my reputation. But these would be hurt so much more by keeping them secret.

I clearly remember a few years ago when I was irresponsible with another man’s tool. I had to look directly into the face of a man I admire and respect and confess, and then ask for his forgiveness.

Confession is good for the soul.

I think we make mental assent of the fact, but when it comes to practice, we determine to keep things hidden and try to cover the dark corners of our lives so that people will think well of us. We project an image of how we want to be perceived, and for many people, the image doesn’t look much like the reality.

Confession closes the gap between our reality and our projection. Wouldn’t it be great if we really didn’t have anything to hide? Wouldn’t we live less stressful, more peaceful lives? Wouldn’t we get more and better sleep?

I’m not saying we should shout all the sordid events of our lives from the rooftops. It’s just that we often act like we don’t believe that Christ covered all of our sin. We act like there is judgment reserved for what we feel is too icky to be touched by His grace. Usually these things are what we judge in other people, but that’s a different article.

Confession helps us to experience grace in a tangible, face to face encounter.

Here are a few notes I’ve made about confession. Feel free to add to them or argue with me:

• Find a few people you can trust to reveal your entire life to, who will keep the information to themselves.
• Try not to leave anything out. The temptation is to go halfway, and thus diminish the benefit of the exercise.
• Your confessors should be people who will encourage you to do what is right.
• Don’t confess cross-gender with anyone except your spouse. There is great danger in that level of intimacy.
• If you need to confess and seek forgiveness from someone, do it right away, see Matthew 5:23-25. The longer you wait, the harder it will be.

There is great freedom in a life lived with integrity, and confession can go a long way in fostering that in our lives.

Life and Pain

Life IS pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Dread Pirate Roberts

I don’t like pain. I just want to be clear about this from the outset. In fact, I avoid pain at all cost. My heel hurts, I don’t run. My head hurts, I take an Advil. My tummy hurts, I eat something or take a Tums.

But pain is a part of life, it’s unavoidable. We come into life through pain, we often leave life with pain, and the living of life often brings pain. For something to which we are so averse, there is an awful lot of it. And we spend an awful lot of time and money avoiding something that is so sure to occur.

And it’s not just the physical pain we try to avoid, either. I, of all people, hate dealing with emotional pain, so I avoid confrontation, stuff negative emotions deep down inside, and try to help everyone around me get along. In spite of everything I know about human relationships and how to have healthy ones, my desire to avoid temporary pain trumps what I know to be true.

I guess you could say that I naturally tend to the comfortable. And you do, too.

Often my desire for comfort clouds my understanding of what God wants for me. The thought goes like this: God wants me to be comfortable, so if it hurts, then it must necessarily be out of the will of God. We talked a bit about this in our small group last night. When I think that God causes all things to work together for good, I act as if that means that I will be free from pain. And with plenty of funds to do the things that I would like to do. And with the new vehicle I have my eye on. And...(insert your own idea of comfort here)

Consider these words from guys much smarter than myself:

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. C. S. Lewis

I say this with care, but I wonder if a fierce, insistent desire for a miracle - - even a physical healing - sometimes betrays a lack of faith rather than an abundance of it. When yearning for a miraculous resolution to a problem, do we make our loyalty to God contingent on whether he reveals himself yet again in the seen world? Phillip Yancey

God does not promise to make bad things good, nor has He assured us that He will keep us from bad things. He has promised us that in all things--even those that are terrible--good can come out of it for all those who love Him. Neil Anderson

When it comes down to it, at some point my desire for comfort becomes an aversion to stepping out and enduring some discomfort, even pain, even suffering, for the cause of Christ. It is at that moment that I begin to live as if God is here for me rather than me for Him. He becomes my Santa Claus, existing only to fulfill my wishes and to swoop in to remove me from any and every uncomfortable situation.

I will continue to take Advil. I will continue to acknowledge my physical pain and try to alleviate it. But maybe instead of trying to avoid pain in favor of comfort, I will seek to understand what I can learn through the pain, and open myself up to what God wants to do in my life because of my circumstances. Maybe then I’ll experience a bit more of that completion that James talks about:

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4