To whom can you bare your soul? Are there confidants among your acquaintances? Too many dark secrets make the heart a mausoleum.
James instructs us to confess our sins to one another. Confession is the enlistment of a friend to aid us in the fight against temptation. It’s the unlocking of a prison door. It is also a hedge against pride, which precedes a fall. We often resist accountability because of a violated trust. Past betrayal convinces us to go it alone. We reason along these lines: “Because I’ve been burned I’ll never risk again.”
If we were so short-sighted in other arenas, we would never learn to walk, sing, dance or write. Trial and error, even painful error, accounts for much of our learning. If we lock the doors and close the shutters because somebody let us down, we live in darkness, never seeing the light of forgiveness and restoration that dawn with the encouragement of a friend.
Choosing one with whom to share your struggles should be a prayerful, careful, and thoughtful decision. Choosing to go it alone ensures disaster.
“For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.”
Ecclesiastes 4:10 NASB1995
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