Confession is a lost art. I’m not sure what comes to your mind when you hear the word confession, but I’m assuming it has a negative connotation. Usually in our culture today not many people confess much of anything. Some confess love for another person or a religion, but few think of confessing any kind of guilt or wrongdoing. Children might confess to doing something they weren’t supposed to after they are caught. Adults might take the time to confess to the Lord before communion if it comes to mind. Other than that confession is an overlooked or forgotten discipline.

So what is confession?

There is beauty in living life as a single. You are only accountable to God, you have freedom to go wherever you want to go and do whatever you want to do. When I was a teenager no one told me life as a single could be so beautiful. I was always under the impression that a major goal in life for everyone was to get married. How did I get there?

Many of us are familiar with the rollercoaster image of someone's spiritual walk. Many Christians talk about having mountain-top experiences usually when he or she is on a service or mission trip. Then we also talk about the valleys, times we can’t seem to bring ourselves to pray, to read Scripture in our normal disciplined manner, or maybe we just don’t feel God. Many, if not all of us, can relate to this kind of journey, this kind of pattern with the Lord. Scripture shows us that while there is a time for everything and those times are normal, there are other rhythms and patterns that we can incorporate into our lives that can counter those and bring to us balance, stability, and order.

From Deut. 30 we see Moses telling the people one issue God indeed sees as black and white.  Look at verse 19 again, “Today, I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.”

While this passage was written for the Israelites in the time of Moses thousands of years ago, we also have that same choice. We have a choice between life or death from the same God that still has His jealous streak. We have the choice between the blessings that come when we wrap our lives up in Him or the curse of living a life unconsumed by Him. There is no grey; there is no in-between; there is no partly.

The word obey is not the most fun word in our language. It doesn’t have the exciting life-giving ring to it that most of us are drawn to. Often times we think if we have to obey someone it means that we have to subject or submit ourselves to another person’s control. While this may be the general understanding of “obey”, and there is some truth to it, there’s something very interesting about the word to pay attention to.