Confession

Watch out. This blog is what you might call "heavy".
Personal inventories, personality tests. After taking one such test Pete took great delight in finding out that my thought pattern was described as "random and web-like". Hmmm, that explains a lot! Can’t help thinking about that as I try to piece together these small bits of glass and tile. Will you be able to see the mosaic?
How strange and unexpected that in this time of learning boundaries and learning to live honestly from the heart that God would lead me into this time of confession, Sabbath, fasting.
What is the connection?
How can I express to you what is developing?
As I have tried to explain to my sisters some of my "strange-to-them" choices I used the analogy of nation. Our family is a nation with it’s own laws and police enforcement and judges, etc. I explained that I was no longer going to obey the "laws of the land". Instead, I’ve decided to follow a different set of laws. It’s been interesting, disturbing, humbling to watch God continue to develop that theme.
I began this journey stuck in the mud of self pity. "Oh! They are so mean to me!" God seems to be saying, "Go ahead! Take a nice long look at yourself! You have been having an adulterous relationship with your family. You have been prostituting yourself to them in vain hope of getting life. How has that worked out for you? And how ridiculous! You have ME, your true husband, your true father, your true source of life. Did you think I would take that sitting down? Did you think I would say, ‘Oh well.’ Is that the kind of God-lover you think I am? I love you enough to destroy your false gods. I am going to smash your old nations, I will remove you from the cities you love. And to be honest, I am really mad at you! I feel betrayed! Turn back to me, my love. Tell me the truth about what you’ve been up to. I know of your fickle heart and that you still long for your old ways, your old lovers. Trust me to teach you how to love me well. I will do it. Because you are mine… and I love you."
"Oh my God! Forgive me. I have followed in the footsteps of my ancestors. I have chosen to try and get life from my relationships with them. I have forsaken your ways, your example and followed both their poor example and my own selfish ways. I know that you are destroying these old ways. I see the sun setting on our family’s old ways - Good bye old ways. The sun is setting on the old ways I did relationship - Good bye old ways. Sometimes this feels like a desert place and I look around at all of the destruction and rubble. But I see now that this place is where the streams of abundance are! Back there, in the "good ole days" that was desert land. I see that now. The way that you’ve exposed my sin feels like a gift. I am ashamed but I am not full of shame. Instead I’m full of gratitude and humility and joy. I receive this exile with gentleness and patience. I receive this Sabbath, this rest with joy and understanding. I wait for you to bring to life in me your life. I confess that my anger has been my way of clinging to these old relationships and ways. Help me to turn from them to you. "

Leviticus 26:27-43 partial, Message
"And if this – even this! -- doesn’t work and you still won’t listen, still defy me, I’ll have had enough and in hot anger will defy you, punishing you for your sins seven times over: … I’ll turn your cities into rubble; I’ll clean out your sanctuaries; I’ll hold my nose at the "pleasing aroma" of your sacrifices… There’ll be nothing left in your land, nothing going on in your cities. With you gone and dispersed in the countries of your enemies, the land, empty of you, will finally get a break and enjoy its Sabbath years. All the time it’s left there empty, the land will get rest, the Sabbaths it never got when you lived there.
"As for those among you still alive, I’ll give them over to fearful timidity – even the rustle of a leaf will throw them into to a panic. They’ll run here and there, back and forth, as if running for their lives even though no one is after them, tripping and falling over one another in total confusion. You won’t stand a chance against an enemy. You’ll perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will eat you up. Any who are left will slowly rot away in the enemy lands. Rot. And all because of their sins, their sins compounded by their ancestors’ sins.
"On the other hand, if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, their treacherous betrayal, the defiance that set off my defiance that sent them off into enemy lands; if by some chance they soften their hard hearts and make amends for their sin…I’ll remember my covenant… And I’ll remember the land.
"The land will be empty of them and enjoy its Sabbaths while they’re gone."

Nehemiah 9:1-2 Message
The People of Israel gathered for a fast, wearing burlap and faces smudged with dirt as signs of repentance. The Israelites broke off all relations with foreigners, stood up and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their parents.

Jeremiah 3:12-14 Message
"’Turn back, fickle Israel.
I’m not just hanging back to punish you.
I’m committed in love to you.
My anger doesn’t seethe nonstop.
Just admit your guilt.
Admit your God-defiance.
Admit to your promiscuous life with casual partners,
pulling strangers into the sex-and-religion groves
While turning a deaf ear to me.’"
GOD’s Decree.
"Come back, wandering children!"
GOD’s Decree.
"I, yes I, and your true husband."

Romans 10:5-10 partial, Message
But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story.
The word that saves is right here
as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.
It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God – "Jesus is my Master" – embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not "doing" anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God settings thins right, and they you say it, right out loud: "God has set everything right between him and me!"

In Better Homes and Gardens I recently read this definition for change: to exchange for something else. Indeed!