by Steve Wentland, Ed.D.O.L.

When I ask for forgiveness it brings me often to tears. My heart is moved and my emotions kick-in. I cry, and often I cry for some time. I do not understand why repentance has aspects of crying, humbleness, and wanting to be a better person but it does. I am glad for that!

I have had a few times in my life when God came in like a flood – I found myself in a state of complete brokenness, as if I was at the Jordan River being baptized by John. I continued throughout the day and many times for days on end asking God for forgiveness. I would cry the whole time – every time I was alone I would be moved to just cry and say ‘I am sorry’. Many times I did not know why and could not tell you what wrongs I was sorry about, but I just wanted to be clean – to be washed.

Sin can have such a hold on our lives. We often do not even recognize its effect and all the consequences our sin brought to us – but God does. He wants us clean. Not just what we remember but even what we do not recollect.

We have what the Bible says are ‘secret sins’. Wrongs that we have hid from others, or we ‘think’ they are hid. Often we never address ‘secret sins’, allowing them to continue in our lives. We are bound and hindered by wrong actions, thoughts, decisions that refrain the blessing and wholeness of God to infiltrate out lives. David asked for forgiveness for secret sins. He knew their influence and the damage these sins produce.

I believe it is the single most destructive area of our lives – to be hiding wrongs. We can never be completely free or clean unless we ask for and acknowledge that we need help from past secret behavior. Secret sins are and can be forgiven – God wants to enter with you into a state of brokenness and our asking for forgiveness.

Next time you are moved to say, “I am sorry God, forgive me of my sins,” do not forget those hidden sins – God wants you to healed and cleansed from them also. Be a better person tomorrow than you are today – by asking for forgiveness from all sins – the obvious and the hidden.

Steve, and his wife, Alonna, are members of the His Way Out Ministries Advisory Council.