My thoughts on unconfessed sin & pain

One theologian has said, “80% of all disease, both biological and psychological, is rooted in separation from God, yourself, and others.”  This is an interesting idea.  Throughout the Bible God has used disease and pain to point people to him and to bring people back to him.  Today, with the advances of medical technology it is easy for even true believing Christians to go to a doctor for a headache and forget that God might be involved.  I am not saying that we should not trust medical science.  Recently I had a bad headache episode, and I had an MRI to make sure there was no organic cause, but is that all I should have done?

Charles Swindol and Billy Graham both told of times when they got very ill and after going to their doctors and finding nothing, they began to examine themselves and they began to ask God to search them and know them.  God revealed to each, unconfessed sin, which they were able to confess, repent of, and their sicknesses vanished.

C.S. Lewis says that Christians today think that the passage of time is the same as confession and forgiveness.  That if a sin fades into the background and we forget about it, then we must be forgiven of it.  This can, for some people, allow for a backlog of unconfessed sin to build up over time.  People have been writing for centuries about how unconfessed sin, that builds up, can be the cause of all sorts of ailments and pains.  God is not punishing Christians for unconfessed sin, instead the build up on unconfessed sin caused physical and mental problems.

It is clear that sin reigns in the world and the world groans under the weight of sin.  Therefore the world is broken.  As “60 Minutes” reported, bacteria are becoming drug resistant at an alarm rated.  It is possible that no matter what a Christ does, we will get sick.  However, we need to cover all our bases.  As we are recuperating from a sickness, ask God if there is unconfessed sin.  Ask God is there is unforgiveness.  Ask God if this sickness has spiritual roots, and not physical roots.  In this way, we can stay close to God, even in our time of sickness.

I will be going to conference for 2 weeks in May to learn about and study the effects of sin on physical health