Healing Confession

by Victoria Gaines
Published July 5, 2006

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." ~ James 5:16

In The Healing Path, Dan Allender states that opening our arms to each other is the most difficult, ongoing battle in any relationship. Unless we only engage as acquaintances, we will usually end up hurting each other. "Confession is an art of relationship that has been lost in our era," Allender says. But if we've experienced God's embrace when we needed reconciliation, we're to remain open to others as well.

Seems to me that confession involves more than simply asking forgiveness when we've hurt someone. We ask forgiveness, not in some vague sort of way, but in naming the hurt, we acknowledge specifically how we failed to love, then try to understand how to better love in the future. Confession is good and necessary to facilitate restoration and healing between two people.

May the Lord quicken our hearts to confession as soon as we realize what we've done.

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