In your experience, how often is unanswered prayer due to unconfessed sin or a wrong heart attitude toward the Lord or others? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1332).
Today at work I was dealing with an intractable computer problem. So I asked the others in the office if they had any ideas. My boss asked if I had checked the DNS configuration. I drew a blank. I simply could not remember the steps required to check those settings. Mark realized my dilemma and coached me to use “ipconfig /all”. I was humiliated that I had to be reminded of this. Immediately I felt hemmed in and defensive. In the past I have only been able to outflank such feelings by confession of the precipitating incident to others—a silent prayer to God alone just doesn’t do it. In fact, the Lord seems to direct me to confess it to someone. So, during lunch in the break room I shared the incident with a friend. Later, I recounted it with another. The confessionals confirmed once again that there is something deeply liberating in confession. It effectively overcomes the defensive “fear of disclosure” and negative feelings that are so destructive to self-esteem. As I have used in illustration before, we are to strive to be that dog with its tail up, curled, and waging over its back. It is extremely harmful to go about with one’s tail tucked under one’s legs. If you sometimes feel this way, I suggest that you identify an undisclosed negative in your life and at once share it in confessional with others. You will find your tail up and waging once again as you underwrite trust in others and share your sense of vulnerability. Often you will be amazed at the almost universal response that goes something like this...”You think that was bad, wait to you hear what happened to me.....” Suddenly both your tails are up and wagging.
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