One of the disciplines encouraged during Lent is confession, confession of who we really are in order to find Christ. We learn to embrace the truth about ourselves so we can find the Truth and Life. According to several dictionaries, three words capture the meaning of confession: acknowledgement (owning to something), admission (allowing access), and avowal (an open statement of affirmation). Confession is owning what’s true about ourselves, allowing the reality of who we are to have access to our minds, and making an unpretentious declaration of that reality. In summary, confession is speaking the truth about who I am to God, others, and myself.
Often confession is defined as a narrow, humiliating duty. We usually think of it only as admitting sin or conceding to some flaw or weakness in our personality. It’s strong medicine we take only if we have to. But, according to our definition, confession is speaking the truth about myself, and that includes positive truth. It’s honesty about my bad, yes, but it’s also honesty about my good. And we have more of a problem admitting positive truth about ourselves than we think.
A large amount of people struggle with pessimism, and pessimism is not a truthful confession. According to Dr. William Backus, depression comes much more readily to pessimists, they accomplish fewer of their daily tasks, they have more health problems as they age, and life isn’t as pleasurable to them as it is for optimists. Truth works, lies don’t. Pessimists skew reality and that hurts them.
Optimists aren’t naïve, superficial, positive-thinking people. A healthy optimist isn’t blind to the facts or a reality denier, but understands that something good stands behind all of the bad we see, and that good will prevail. For the Christian, of course, that good is Christ. Because of this, optimists see that any hardships they experience are only temporary setbacks, and not the result of some universal, persistent, all powerful force that is against them (i.e., bad luck, bad karma, bad fortune, etc.).
Interestingly, optimists and pessimists reverse roles when it comes to positive events. Optimists see positive things happening in thier life as normal – an abiding, constant, and expected outcome – whereas pessimists attribute positive events to transitory or accidental causes. In other words, optimists expect good and see bad as temporary. Pessimists expect bad and see good as temporary.
Confession is speaking the truth about who I am. I am someone who is loved by a faithful God who only has thoughts of good for me, and is leading me to a hopeful future (Jer. 29:11). During Lent, as we focus on what needs to change in our lives to be more fully Christian, don’t forget that confession isn’t just about admitting our faults, but also affirming the positive and hopeful aspects of our lives.