Confession...

James 5:16 (The Message)

Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.

Hannah and Jesse had an issue with each other today. I would like to say it was an unusual phenomenon, but it is rather common. They love each other dearly and won't ever let anyone outside the family mess with each other, but they sure can get under each other's skin themselves.

Hannah and I were talking a little while ago and I was explaining to her that her attitude was sin. I explained again what sin was and that it was an offense against the Lord. I told her she needed to pray and confess to the Lord what she had done wrong and ask Him to forgive her and then she needed to go to Jesse and ask him to forgive her, too.

She was good with the confessing her sins to Jesus, but when I got to her need to confess to Jesse she said, "Oh no! That is the worst part!"

I had the hardest time not giggling when she said it because I thought how common that is for all of us. How much easier does it seem to confess to the Lord and ask for forgiveness than to have to confess our sins to one another and pray for each other so that we may be whole and healed? It's one thing for the Lord to know we screwed up and need to be forgiven, but how much we hate to let anyone else know we were wrong!

I pray that I would take seriously the need to confess my sins to the Lord and ask for His forgiveness and then that I would be willing to confess my sins to the human being I have offended and ask them for forgiveness, too!

It took Hannah a while, but I did hear her apologize to Jesse while I was typing and ask him to forgive her! How thankful I am to know that their relationship has been restored and healed and how thankful I am that they can learn this principle early in life!! \O/