“Where are you?”

The question wasn’t one of proximity. The Lord knew exactly where they were, though they were doing their best to hide from Him. Adam and Eve had sinned. They knew it. God knew it. And how they were cowering in new emotions they had not previously felt – fear and shame. The Lord beckoned to them:

“Where are you?”

It was more than a question; it was an invitation to stop hiding. To come into the light. To acknowledge what all three of them knew to be true. Still today, when we find ourselves refusing to acknowledge the truth of our actions as if God could be fooled by our makeshift emotional hiding places, we hear His voice calling us to come into the light.

That’s what confession is: It’s coming into the light. It is allowing yourself to be exposed. It is acknowledging what is plainly obvious to you and to the God who created you. But here’s the thing: Only those who are truly confident in the love of God are ready to confess.

By way of illustration, think about your closest relationships. Maybe it’s with your husband or your wife; perhaps a roommate or a best friend. Now consider that you have clearly wronged that person. Maybe that wronging is relatively small thing. You spoke harshly or you failed to remember something you were supposed to. Whatever the case, you screwed up. You know it. She knows it. So what do you do? I’d postulate that your readiness to confess is dependent upon how deeply you believe they truly love you.

If you know they love you, then why not own it? Why not confess? Why not ask for forgiveness? You can do this when you are secure in love because you know that they are not waiting there to berate you for your transgression. They aren’t salivating at the opportunity to beat you over the head, over and over again, for what you’ve done wrong. Instead, and because they love you, they are ready to hear your confession and tell you that you are forgiven.

But what if you didn’t know that? What if in that relationship there have been occasions before when grudges have been held? What if their pattern is to bring up your wrongs over and over again over the course of weeks or months? What do you then?

In a word, you justify yourself.

Instead of truly owning your sin, you begin to craft a ready defense meant to prove that you might have indeed something wrong, but you had good reason to do so. Or else you begin to recall all the ways they have wronged you. These become your bullets to fire in the coming attack, and you want to make sure you don’t run out of ammunition.

See it? The more convinced of the love of another the more ready you are to own your own sin.

In the case of Adam and Eve, it was the love of God that the serpent attacked. In his subtle temptation, he was leveling a charge at the loving character of God: If He really loved you, He would not have held back this tree from you. And the humans believed it. They were still holding onto those questions about God’s great love, and that’s why they found themselves hiding behind the trees.

But God’s love was not, and is not, dependent on the goodness of those it’s given to. His love finds its root in Himself and in Himself alone. So even then, in the first days of creation, God was willing to demonstrate His love again. He did for Adam and Eve what they could not do for themselves – He covered their shame. But His covering was costly:

“The Lord God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).

Thanks God He did it again. Thank God He demonstrated His love to you and I, too. Oh, it cost Him – greatly. But thank God that we are now clothed not with leather but with righteousness. So what are we going to do with that great love of God?

Surely there are many answers, but today consider this one: Because of God’s great love, you can own your sin. You can come into the light. And so can I.