I Have a Confession

James 5:16 -Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

The Bible tells me to confess our sins, and I usually do this directly to God and occasionally to my close personal friends who live near me, know me well, and love me.  However, in this instance I am choosing to confess here (after already admitting my fault to God) because the ones I have sinned against have been the bloggy world, many who don't even know my blog exists.  I am writing in a smaller font, because honestly, I don't really want you all to be able to read it.

I have been very judgmental recently. I did not realize it was judgmental, but it was.  I am an opinionated person and my spiritual gift according to many spiritual tests is the gift of prophecy.  My church (and many others) defines this as the ability to see and speak truth.  This totally lines up with what has happened in my life; if you are honestly interested I would be happy to tell you all about it.

Now the difficulty with this gift is that often I see flaws in arguments, Bible verses used out of context, and sin in people's lives.  I once, 10 years ago, had a pastor tell me that sometimes, possibly often, these things are not always revealed to me to speak it out, but to be praying for the situation or person and leaving God to handle it.  This was great advice at the time, and one I have tried to follow ever since.  As I have grown in wisdom I have been blessed to be used by God to correct some error and speak truth, but always with love (at least that is always the goal).  Oddly enough, when you pray about it first, speaking the truth in love becomes much easier.

Recently I have joined the bloggy world, and more specifically the Adoption Bloggy World, and some posts and discussions have really stirred the prophet in me.  So I prayed, and I prayed, but I wanted God to tell me--address this!  Correct their wrong thinking!  But He did not.  He convicted me.

Now, He did not tell me that what I was seeing was good and true and not worth correcting.  What He showed me is that I was being judgmental about it.  That I wasn't really seeking ways to express the truth in love, but that I was wanting to attack the problem and possibly the posts that are most extreme, that I was perceiving every post on the particular topic through jaundiced eyes and not allowing God to speak to me on the topic.

Now the topic has not gone away; I am still uncomfortable with the extremes being put forth, but many are talking in moderation; some of my concerns are based on wording not the actual intent.  I still do not know my role in speaking truth.  However, if He does call me to say something out there and not just from the relative safety of my blog (I have very few readers, and possibly less recently), I believe I will be able to with God's grace speak in love with the right heart attitude.  Was I not clear before?  My heart was way off here.  

Please forgive me as God has forgiven me.  Thank you.