Prayers of Confession

by Kristin Devine Mueller,
Interim Director of Children's Ministries

Most merciful God, we confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed—by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

I grew up in a church where we recited this prayer every Sunday in church as part of our corporate liturgy. Even as I type this blog entry, the words come back to me in a familiar and easy way.

That’s right—easy—it was easy to say this prayer as a child. I understood it, and I understood where I had fallen short of God’s commands. I was taught from a young age that everyone sins—in our thoughts, in our words, in our actions. We do things we shouldn’t, and we don’t do the things we should. I didn’t love God with my whole heart—there were things I wanted more than God. I didn’t love my neighbors as myself—there were some who became the target of class jokes, and rather than stand up for them, I laughed with the rest.

It was also easy to say this prayer because we said the same thing, week after week, and I had a great memory. If I chose to, I could rattle off this prayer, and listen to the cadences of the voices around me, rather than focus inward on my own thoughts and need for confession. While the prayer was easy to understand, it was hard to face the images that flashed through my mind, of all the ways I had failed God.

What I love about speaking our confession aloud in church, though, is that shortly after, the pastor would speak words of forgiveness to us. I didn’t have to sit for the rest of the service, reliving and remembering my sins. I was forgiven!

“Then I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide. I said, ‘I confess my faults to the Lord,’ and you took away the guilt of my sin.” (Psalm 32:5, NAB)

While it may be difficult to face our inward selves and the reality of our sin during times of corporate confession, it is only in doing so that we can fully experience the forgiveness that God offers to us. In this forgiveness, we find freedom from the guilt of our sin, and this freedom brings us deeper into new life with Christ.