When Someone Responds Poorly to a Confession
If you’ve seen any of our content on Instagram, you know that we are 100% team confession! We believe it’s one of the most healing experiences we could have on this earth. We are told in James 5:16, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
Confession is an act of obedience, but so is the response to someone else’s confession.
Let’s take a look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
If you were brave enough to confess to a Christian friend, mentor, parent, sibling, etc. and they met you with judgement, criticism, anger, frustration, and/or blame, they completely abandoned their call to love you like Jesus does. And this is not your fault. Remember: you cannot control how someone else responds. If this has happened to you, I am truly so sorry.
If you confessed your battle with porn and masturbation to someone and they proceeded to affirm your actions instead of lifting you up and walking in the battle with you, they are delighting in evil and not rejoicing with the truth. There’s a higher chance this will happen if you confess to a non-believer simply because they have a completely different moral standard than we do. I had this experience confessing to an atheist, and it left me feeling so confused and unseen.
I want to make one thing clear. If you confess to a boyfriend, fiancé, or husband that you have been watching pornography and masturbating (and we do encourage you to have this conversation with him!), he is allowed to feel hurt. Hurt is not synonymous with hate. Allow him to experience that hurt. He might want some time alone. He might want to go on a run or take a nap or cry. He might not have the words right away, and that’s okay. Allow him to grieve, as you would want time to grieve if you were in his situation, and then resume a conversation when the time is right.
You acted in obedience by confessing. It is then his turn to act in obedience by meeting you with love, grace, compassion, and truth.
Reflect on 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 in preparation for someone confessing to you as well. Because chances are someone is going to confess something to you in your life, and it will be your opportunity to meet them with this love, grace, compassion, and truth.
If you had a negative experience with confession, we pray that God will redeem that experience and your feelings towards confession. We pray that He puts someone in your life who will show you the true love of Jesus.