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Forgiveness and Confessing—Lily Caswell

 So as I was reading, the very first section of Book V hit me for some inexplicable reason. When Augustine said “If a man confesses to you, he does not reveal his inmost thoughts to you as though you did not know them. For the heart may shut itself away, but it cannot hide from your sight. Man’s heart may be hard, but it cannot resist the touch of your hand.” (Augustine, p 91) it just spoke to me. For me, confessing has always been something I’ve struggled with and I think a lot of people are in the same boat as I am. 1 John 1:9 says that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (KJV) I think that the whole point of confessing is that God already knows what we’ve done but He wants us to acknowledge that what we did was wrong and that we have enough sense to ask for his forgiveness so that we won’t commit that same sin again (even though we always do). The point I think Augustine is trying to make is that no matter how much we sin, God is always pushing us in ways that we are not aware of to ask for His forgiveness. He said that “Whenever you will, your mercy or your punishment can make it relent, and just as none can hide away from the sun, none can escape your burning heat.” (p 91) God is always pushing us towards Him and His open arms, we just have to respond.

I commented on Isabelle’s post and Jamie’s post.

Comments

  1. ClaboFebruary 1, 2021 at 9:20 PM

    I am with you in that boat Lily. Confessing is tough because we as human beings for the most part like to ignore our own imperfections. It's like it is the more evolved form of putting all our dirty clothes and junk under our beds when we were children. We want to make it look all clean to others and even ourselves, but deep down we know that we are hiding our mess.

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