\u201cTrue Confessions\u201d — I think that was the title of an old movie, a sleazy magazine, a novel, and an informative newspaper column. And, today, I\u2019m coming clean on some personal true confessions of my own. Ever go through a season of self-regret?
I\u2019m there today. I\u2019m reading ME like a book and this book is lack luster. This chapter is about “impatience”. I\u2019ve become an impatient Austin driver. I weave in and out of lanes to get to my next pit-stop faster. Those slow drivers keep me from on-time arrivals! I can be impatient and annoyed at drive-thrus when their service is way too slow. After all, I must be on time to pick up my grandson after school. And, to my chagrin, I was late when I was stuck in a Chick-Fil-A drive-thru line for 20 minutes. I love Chick-Fil-A and their founder, Truett Cathy, who saw the importance of closing on Sundays so that he and his employees could set aside one day to rest and worship if they choose.
Chick-Fil-A, as we all know, is also known for being the fastest service drive thru. Typically, it is. But not last week. And what does this sweet, little ole lady say to the already overloaded window person? \u201cIt\u2019s official. I hereby award you all with the medal for slowest Chick-Fil-A ever!\u201d The cashier apologizes: \u201cI\u2019m so sorry. We\u2019re understaffed today!\u201d Oh, my heart explodes with deep regret! I tell my grandson why I\u2019m late and the words I said to the cashier. He says: \u201cNana, you are a Karen!\u201d I ask “What is a Karen?” He replies: “It means you are a white woman who complains about service because you think you are privileged.\u201d WHAT? Dear Lord, please\u2014no not me! That is NOT who I want to be.
I’m pulling up James 5:16 that reads: \u201cConfess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.\u201d With those words, I know God is \u201ctenderizing\u201d me, even as I make my confession to my \u201cone-anothers\u201d. I desperately want to be that righteous woman. I am grateful for my conscience-indicator that reveals when I\u2019m out of sorts. Ever since my sweet mama\u2019s final words to me when I would leave her oversight were \u201cLet your conscience be your guide\u201d, my conscience has been my constant companion.
I know that it is my conscience and my grandson\u2019s admonition that I want to correct this out-of-alignment in me.
More than anything, I desire God\u2019s stamp of approval. I type this blog and remember the Apostle Peter and how he kept messing up! Maybe that\u2019s why I identify with him today. I mess up too! I\u2019m thankful God loves \u201cmesser-uppers\u201d! Peter\u2019s whole life was one big object lesson. He did some great things and some not great things. I can relate. That\u2019s why I love the last chapter of John\u2019s gospel that contains a conversation between Jesus and Peter after Jesus was resurrected AND after Peter had denied Jesus three times.
Jesus showed Peter an ocean of grace. He gave him three opportunities to say, \u201cI love you.\u201d That was the kind of forgiveness that can transform a life. After this conversation, we find Peter preaching and sharing the Good News! Like Peter, when we stumble, fall, and have regrets, we ask God for His forgiveness. I know Jesus well enough to know — He forgives. He knows and loves me, the real ME and the real YOU. And His forgiveness is big enough for us! Jesus never turns away anyone who\u2019s willing to admit they\u2019ve messed up and need His help. That\u2019s repentance and today I repent. That means agreeing with God that His way is best, saying we\u2019re sorry to Him and others for how we\u2019ve blown it, and committing to do better in the future with His help.
Now, the next step is to learn from our mistakes. Maybe we won\u2019t perfectly always obey here on earth, but there\u2019s certainly a lot we can learn from our failures. Like Peter, we all need to run to Jesus. Forgiveness lies in one direction. We\u2019ll find it at the cross. That doesn\u2019t mean our work is over, but it does mean we\u2019re heading in the right direction. I\u2019m heading that direction NOW!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cTrue Confessions\u201d — I think that was the title of an old movie, a sleazy magazine, a novel, and an informative newspaper column. And, today, I\u2019m coming clean on some personal true confessions of my own. Ever go through a season of self-regret? I\u2019m there today. I\u2019m reading ME like a book and this book…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21713,21712,21711],"tags":[21707,1210,2618,1769,21709,1348,1174,1382,40,18275,21706,4049,21710,8627,21708,21705],"class_list":["post-14926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-confess-faults","category-confession","category-stamp-of-approval","tag-admonition","tag-blog","tag-chick-fil-a","tag-christian","tag-confess-your-faults","tag-conscience","tag-direction","tag-forgiveness","tag-inspiration","tag-mess-up","tag-repentence","tag-restoration","tag-righteous","tag-stamp-of-approval","tag-true-confessions","tag-when-we-fall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14929,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14926\/revisions\/14929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}