From the Home Place

December 6, 2026

Well it looks like today will be another day of the wind speed and the temperature matching. On such days, I wish the temperature wasn’t going to be so nice.

I spent the last two days of December looking for a bugle cow because my license expired the end of the month. One of those days, as I was sliding down a steep bank, I somehow got a pebble inside of my hunting boot. I really didn’t have the desire, nor the time, to stop, untie my boot and deal with the pebble, so I attempted to keep walking while sharing space with the pebble. Well, as we all know, the pebble soon won. I had to take a few minutes of precious time and empty that little bitty pebble out of my boot.

Think of it this way, unconfessed sin is like that pebble in my hunting boot. Lets pretend that I just bull-headedly kept walking, and then the next time I sin we add another pebble, and then another and then another. It isn’t very long before I can’t even walk. Fact, if we don’t deal with sin immediately, we soon become a spiritual cripple. In 1 Peter, God tells husbands that if we hurt the heart of our wife (sin), then He doesn’t hear our prayers (result of unconfessed sin).

To confess sin, I need to follow the example of King David who admitted to God, “against You and You only have I sinned.” Sure, if I sin against you, I owe you an apology and need to ask for your forgiveness, but because I have sinned against you, I need to confess such sin as direct rebellion against God.

The problem is that my human nature prefers to rationalize my sin instead of admitting it. You know, statements like, “well it wasn’t that bad,” or “well I didn’t really mean any harm by…”, or “that person deserved to hear how I feel.” Any excuse to cover my sin is a poor excuse.

So please, don’t let a “little” pebble in your shoe – sin – cripple you. Be quick to acknowledge it, confess it to God, asking His forgiveness. After all, “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confession leads to cleansing, and cleanliness is next to godliness.

It’s kind of difficult to “walk” with Jesus when we have a shoe full of pebbles. May I suggest that we all need to daily stop and empty out our shoe.

Walking with Jesus with you, Neal