A friend once said, “Unconfessed sin is like wearing earbuds. You get annoyed that you can’t hear God, forgetting that you’re the one who blocked out His voice.”
I laughed—because I knew it was true. When my heart isn’t clean, my prayer life stinks.
There are times when the fastest path to a better devotional life begins with saying, “Holy Spirit, show me the sins I have forgotten.”
There are other times my ears only open to hear God’s will when I ask, “Lord, open my heart to a better understanding of where I have failed You.”
And there are times (wince!) when I can’t hear much of anything until I’ve said, “Jesus, tell me the hard truths I need to know about myself.”
It’s never hard to say we’re sinners in a general sense. The hard part is admitting the specific sins which block our hearing. But fair’s fair: We really can’t expect God to shout if we’re unwilling to remove the barriers we’ve put in the way of open communication.
