James 5:16
It can be difficult to admit our flaws, faults, fears, and failures even to ourselves. There can be pain in looking at the truth of our motives and actions. We share personal information and call it a ‘prayer request’. What motivated us to do that? We can tell ourselves it is thoughtfulness or that we were just concerned. Much tougher to admit it was because we wanted to look like we had the inside scoop or simply because we wanted to impress our friends with a juicy story. Yuck!
A friend does something wrong or hurtful and we don’t confront them because we don’t want to “make waves”. Why not? If we are honest with ourselves, might it be because we are more concerned with them liking us than anything else?
If we can get up the courage to be honest with ourselves, we can then bring these things to our Heavenly Father. We can humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.
These are important and valuable steps, but this is not the final step. We need to share our ‘yuck’ with other people. We don’t necessarily have to share our greatest character defect or secret sin right out the gate. Start small. Open up about little things first. Test the waters. We might very well find that when we share our darker side, we become more accessible and more likeable. Then in this opening up, in this confession, we will be healed. Little by little we will become whole.
It can be difficult to admit our flaws, faults, fears, and failures even to ourselves. There can be pain in looking at the truth of our motives and actions. We share personal information and call it a ‘prayer request’. What motivated us to do that? We can tell ourselves it is thoughtfulness or that we were just concerned. Much tougher to admit it was because we wanted to look like we had the inside scoop or simply because we wanted to impress our friends with a juicy story. Yuck!
A friend does something wrong or hurtful and we don’t confront them because we don’t want to “make waves”. Why not? If we are honest with ourselves, might it be because we are more concerned with them liking us than anything else?
If we can get up the courage to be honest with ourselves, we can then bring these things to our Heavenly Father. We can humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.
These are important and valuable steps, but this is not the final step. We need to share our ‘yuck’ with other people. We don’t necessarily have to share our greatest character defect or secret sin right out the gate. Start small. Open up about little things first. Test the waters. We might very well find that when we share our darker side, we become more accessible and more likeable. Then in this opening up, in this confession, we will be healed. Little by little we will become whole.
