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At church this morning, the Prayer of Confession stood out to me:
“Dear God, You have come to seek and to save that which was lost. We confess that when we realize You are coming, we run for cover. We are afraid of the light of your presence. We are afraid of the change involved in healing. We are afraid of the restitution necessary with repentance. Forgive us, O God, for giving our fears more power than we give to You. Forgive us and give us courage to take your presence with us, as Zacchaeus did, into our homes and work places. Amen.”
I think that it’s easy to be afraid of the change involved in healing, assuming that healing is even at the end of the tunnel. For example, if I were to get therapy to help me with my social skills, my therapist would probably encourage me to go to more parties and social gatherings, which I do not want to do. I prefer what my last therapist did: he did not pressure me to attend a bunch of social gatherings, but he gave me tips on how I could handle the social things that I did have to do (i.e., interact with professors, colleagues, co-workers, etc.).
On restitution, I believe in it, I suppose. But I don’t feel compelled to be friends with everybody on the face of the earth. It’s hard for me to reconcile with certain people, when I wasn’t conciled with them in the first place. Lately, when I have done wrong (i.e., been rude, or harsh), I have tried to get into the habit of promptly admitting it and apologizing, or at least making a friendly gesture. But I haven’t felt a need to track down everyone I have socially offended in the past and to apologize. My approach is just to learn from my mistakes and move on.
