Faith Venture

James 5:16, Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.

Language can sometimes become an obstacle to understanding. I try to avoid words that may carry emotional baggage that interferes with understanding. Confession and repentance are two of those words that contain important meaning often lost in the mental picture of a crazy guy with a beard and a sign on a street corner yelling at passers-by.

I have been thinking on this passage from James searching for guidance for spiritual formation and also for healing from emotional and spiritual wounds.

Let us consider a process.

Sometimes our emotions are ruling our day; sometimes we lash out in anger without cause.

The first step is awareness. Something happens in my life that makes me aware of my life, my hurts, my bad choices. 

Becoming aware, I search out someone for conversation. Perhaps a guide or a small group would lead me using some intelligent questioning to become aware of my situation. I can name it. Naming it, I can begin to deal with it.

Now I am ready for what James called “confession.” That is, awareness that leads me to see the source of my grief or anxiety or wrongly chosen path. I talk about it with my small group.

Awareness, leading to understanding my role in the situation, leads to changing my thoughts and behaviors.

This process can take a month. It can take a year. No one knows going into it.

Awareness, talk it through, use the support of a small group. Experience has taught that this is an effective agent for changing a life.

This entry was posted on June 3, 2025 at 5:36 am and is filed under Confession, healing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.