Hey, y'all.
Time for me to bring up one of the more painful and disturbing aspects of my GCC experience. I'm going to do this by asking a question:
When confessing a sin of sexual nature, were you ever prompted to give more detail than you were comfortable with?
Follow up: Biblically, is there ever a moment where this would be appropriate? If not, what IS the appropriate way to deal with the confession of sexual sin?
In a nutshell, there was many a situation where I came forth and confessed, willingly and of my own accord, to sexual immorality. I did so out of a sheer desire to not repeat the sin. I was shamed, to say the least, and most disturbingly asked for specific and sometimes explicit detail because I "needed" to feel embarrassed. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, I was asked these questions in front of my pastor, my parents, and my partner's parents. I said things in front of my father that no father should have to hear.
And, to clarify, I was at least 20 years old the first time this happened. Sigh.
Anyone else?
The only thing that I can add to this is that sometimes with this particular sin and many other types of sins, one has to figure out, where things went wrong. For instance with sexual immorality, it doesn't happen all of a sudden. So, in order to avoid it in the beginning, one might need to decide to not meet with a person of the opposite gender passed a certain time. That's just an example. Many details are best not to ask or even know. That can cause other problems. A person, who is given to gluttony might need to avoid having their refridgerator stuffed with food. But again, many details are not necessary. But a person, who wants to stop this, especially when this is a habit should know where they go wrong. And that's good counsel generally. If my car keeps breaking down... I would want to know why and how to avoid it.
