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CONFESSION is good for the soul, we are told, but it’s a hugely challenging element of discipleship. Confession to God is hard enough. We all stand in danger of failing to confess to God. While we appreciate that an all-seeing, all-knowing God is already aware of our failures, it is crucial for us that we recognise our failings and articulate our confession to God. In the story of Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52), the crucial moment is when Bartimaeus says, ‘Rabbi, I want to see.’ It was his confession that brought about the healing and restoration.

However, James further makes clear that if we have wronged someone, we should also go to them and make it right. Just confessing to the Lord in this case is insufficient. We have to go to the person who we have wronged and humble ourselves. That means confessing that we were wrong, we did wrong or we spoke wrongly, and seeking their forgiveness. For many disciples, this is extremely difficult. We fear losing face and so our confession becomes at best diluted and dissipated, and at worst non-existent. It is often hard these days to make ourselves vulnerable and open to another person, but this is the way in the Kingdom of God. It is the only way that we can be fully restored. Leaving matters to cool down only works to a certain extent. Confession clears the board.

But there is another side to this. When we are the person wronged, we have to be ready to forgive and pray for the person who has wronged us. When someone comes to us with their confession, we have to humble ourselves for the sake of restoration and renewal. While equally necessary, it is also demanding and challenging to act in this way.

GOD is a God of justice. He heard, saw and knew the plight of the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 3:7). Throughout history, he has been on the side of those abused and disadvantaged. He heard the cry of the Christians during the Roman persecution. At the time of writing, in December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria had just fallen and stories were coming to light of terrible actions against the people of that country. God was fully aware of the atrocities carried out in the Second World War against the Jewish people, and he hears the cries of the victims of human trafficking, the disabled, the hungry and the poor.

But Jesus tells us very clearly that it is our responsibility to pray persistently for these situations. Closing our eyes and ears is not an acceptable part of discipleship. Hard as it is to see and hear the stories, we must call on God to save these people from their distress.

A persistent widow, herself one of the disadvantaged, crying out for justice to a judge who didn’t fear God or man is Jesus’ parable. And he concludes by saying that if even a miserable, hardened judge will eventually relent and give justice, how much more will a loving Father in Heaven give it to his children?

And finally, Jesus drops a further challenge when asking if there will be people who will be prayer warriors. We strive to be those people who toil faithfully through prayer and action for justice.

Faithful, never-ceasing, persistent prayer is the permanent calling of every true disciple of Christ who is dedicated to living for the Kingdom of God.

‘He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’ Micah 6:8

SOME people are just really good first thing in the morning. They call themselves ‘morning people’ and they feel that they are at their best at the beginning of the day. Multiple tasks are achieved, energy levels are high and the incentive to get going drives them forward. They awaken with a passion to get started, and the first hours of the day are their most productive.

Not all of us are like that, and we shall look tomorrow at those who consider themselves to be ‘evening people’. However, Scripture nonetheless reminds us here that we should declare his love in the morning, whether or not we consider ourselves to be morning people.

To proclaim his love in the morning sets us up for our daily walk with him. We head off on the right path because we have given him time and attention. We recognise again, at the start of the new day, that God is love and that he has planted his love into our hearts. It is a good discipline to proclaim his love each day.

I am aware of people who are currently seeking to discipline themselves to commence their proclamation of his love, before they even get out of bed in a morning. Their prayers begin as soon as they awaken. Not all of us are alert enough at the moment of waking to be able to properly proclaim, but we should each strive to come to the Lord before the busyness of the day kicks in, spending some time proclaiming his love, asserting our love for him, and seeking his guidance and direction for that which lies ahead of us.

PRAYER

Lord, how I love you. You have done so much, so very, very much for me. Keith Banks

SHE was looking over her cappuccino into the middle distance when she gave an audible sigh. Not in resignation or pain, but a gentle sigh of imagined appreciation. What picture was there in her mind? Daydreaming of holidays in the sun, wishful thinking about a relationship yet to be, musing over beautiful jewellery, clothes and shoes, a vague hope of promotion, a fanciful notion that she would have riches beyond measure, a pipe dream of stardom, or some inspiring vision?

But with the slightest flicker of the eyes and the smallest movement of the head, one could see that her beautiful dream had faded and she was back in reality.

Researchers are divided as to whether those moments when the mind imagines likely, or improbable, possibilities are or are not healthy. Temporarily disengaging from one’s present environment can counter boredom and lead to creativity. But lack of attention can potentially be physically dangerous, while a prolonged disconnect from reality may indicate a possible psychological problem.

For the girl with the cappuccino, the beautiful dreams obviously helped her day. As one of the characters in the film South Pacific sings: ‘You got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?’

Verses 17 and 18 from our reading are a beautiful dream. One that has become reality for countless people over the centuries. Folk full of the Holy Spirit have been emboldened and empowered to speak God’s mind, regardless of personal cost. Folk have been envisioned and enabled by the Holy Spirit to take on some new enterprise to the glory of God. Folk, inspired by the Holy Spirit, have dreamed of new attitudes and behaviour within society.

Are we open to the Holy Spirit’s inspiration? What is the Spirit saying to us? Are we working towards living a Spirit-inspired dream?

DEPENDING on which resource you consult, the average person speaks between 2,000 and 16,000 words in the course of their day. They flow from a range of different interactions, including technical discussions at work, casual conversations with friends, frustrated comments directed towards other road users as we drive, private chats with trusted colleagues and family, as well as hosts of other sources. The psalmist advises that it is good to proclaim God’s faithfulness at night; to recognise the important conversations we have had, to ask for God’s blessing over people we have conversed with, to offer all that we have sought to do during that busy day of activity, and our many words, for his benediction on our day. Taking the opportunity to declare his faithfulness takes some of the pressure away from us. As disciples, we fulfil our Kingdom responsibilities by having conversations with people, witnessing to our faith and confessing our trust in the Lord. But handing all that over to him at the end of the day, for him to add his blessing over it all, reminds us that he is the Sovereign God and we are simply his people. Failing to recognise his faithfulness is a terribly easy omission. We have busy lives and many pressures upon us, and without allowing time at the end of the day to recognise that we have been about his business and not merely our own, we miss the opportunity to hand those events and conversations over to him. As we commenced our day, so let us conclude – by offering thanks and praise to our Lord for his every influence, every guidance and every protection over us.

REFLECT

Give thanks for the day just past and make an evening sacrifice of praise to God (see Psalm 141:1-2).