In a meeting yesterday, the question was asked, “what good could come from owning your sin?”

It was one of those meetings where everyone was locked in on the target. It was like there was an object in the center of the circle and each person who spoke helped you see something surprising in the object.

Maybe a better analogy is that the object was being shaped with each comment. It was taking form. Coming into focus.

• Owning your sin allows you to make changes.

• It keeps you humble

• If you aren’t honest about what you’ve done, you’re always on edge because it’s a lot of work keeping track of the lies—and you have to create new lies to sustain the lies you’ve already told.

• I’ve made so many excuses. Where are you going, mom? (Excuse). Why do you need this money, mom? (Excuse). Why were you walking down the street dancing last week? (Excuse). So many excuses.

• When you tell lies to yourself, you can’t tell what’s real anymore. Owning your sin brings you back to reality.

• Owning up to what I did gave me sobriety (from the person who was celebrating a significant sober birthday.)

• It lets other people know that you can be trusted. There’s consistency between what you say and what they can see about you.

That last comment was well-timed. It came from someone at the tail end of the circle, and it took the concept of responsibility from the personal to the communal.

It showed how a person’s honesty affects those around him. I imagined a daughter, a wife, a store owner. Each one’s life is blessed by an honest person. Each one has somewhere their foot can step. They're not in some unmoored drifting universe. They are in a world of solid relationships and knowable parameters. They can make decisions and predict outcomes. They are safe.

These verses come to mind:

1 Corinthians 15:58
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Matthew 5:37 

Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

And I also have a greater understanding of why these verses have comforted generations of men and women during life’s trials.

Psalm 33:11

The counsel of the Lord stands forever,

The plans of His heart from generation to generation.

Numbers 23:19

“God is not a man, that He should lie,

Nor a son of man, that He should repent;

Has He said, and will He not do it?

Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Jesus’ death on the cross is perhaps the greatest act of steadfastness and certainty in the universe. It gives us a template. A hero was sent to save mankind. And even though his mission seemed to have failed and the darkness seemed to have triumphed, light and goodness won.

Anyone facing any hardship can point to that moment and say, not even death thwart the plans of God. The circumstances of my life may appear dire, but we can say:

Romans 8:38-39

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.