
Confessing Together
Coming face to face with how we have fallen short takes courage and humility. None of us likes to admit short-comings, and none of us likes to own up and apologize when we feel justified in our anger. But ignoring sin or seeking our own vengeance, even in trivial everyday matters, keeps our hearts hardened and unavailable for unity.
When you are married, you and your husband will be one flesh. Your short-comings will affect him and his will affect you. Choosing to hold onto sin creates a division between you and God and also between you and your husband; sin chokes out the honesty and humility necessary for Christ-like love.
One of the most simple ways to deal with sin is to confess it. Call sin what it is. When your vocabulary can define sin, your mind can better distinguish it as sin in the future. And when you voice the wrong to one who can both hold you accountable and encourage you in rejecting sin, your personal stake in choosing righteousness over sin becomes more tangible. Confessing sin allows healing to happen (James 5:16).
Chris and I have adopted a nightly routine of confessing sin to each other. While we might hold some sin to confess separately with a same-sex accountability partner, we share the majority of how we have fallen short that day. This practice has changed our marriage, and so I suggest it to you and your fiancé as something to consider building into your engagement or maybe later on into your marriage.
When we share, the other is silent, offering no criticism or advice. We just listen and hold those confessions in our silent prayers for each other. (Definitely avoid pointing out other sins that your spouse needs to confess. That is never received well.) Then we pray together with pure hearts towards God and towards each other (1 John 1:9).
During the day, if we say a harsh word to each other or do something to spite one another, we’ll confess it on the spot because we know we would be confessing it later to each other anyway. Immediate confession has stopped irritation from spiraling into anger, and it has empowered us to take responsibility for our own sinful responses even if we felt that they were provoked by the other. And knowing that each of us is eager to admit and throw off our own sin makes it easier to bring up areas in need of growth and correction. The whole dynamic of sticky issues is changed because we know that the other is committed to claiming victory over sin. Sin will not divide us.
Confessing your sins to one another in marriage also provides such an intimate opportunity for growing that spiritual muscle in your everyday contexts as well. God has already given us the power to resist temptation, to flee from evil, and to choose love, but learning to do that consistently can be a life-long process. Having a sanctified and safe covenant marriage in which to develop this kind of honesty, humility, grace, and righteousness is a gift from God!
