This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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We hang on to our sins not despite the fact that they hurt, but precisely because they do hurt. We need to hurt, to fret over them, to cry over them, to make amends over them, because by doing so, we will grease the wheels of God’s forgiveness.
Really, once you’ve heard and believed the Gospel, the goal now is to learn more and more about the law of God, so that you can mature into a commandment-keeping, law-loving, obedient disciple of Jesus. Right?
Christ alone has finished your salvation. Christ alone could and has made satisfaction for your sins.
I looked up at the cross and saw what God had become to bring me home. He had become what I was.
Warning, Remember, O man, that thou art dust… And lust, he mocks in mute self-condemnation.
What is really good for the soul is not so much confession as absolution. If confession is us telling the truth about ourselves to God, then absolution is God telling us a truer truth about ourselves.
In nature one with God, The Son partakes in love, Of human flesh that we, Partake of God above.
Whether we are overcome by happiness on the mountaintop or overwhelmed by sorrow in the valley, our vision can be our greatest handicap.
When God is at work, oftentimes the best activity is non-activity, the best speech is non-speech. Sometimes God wants us to shut up.
As with so many things, regret can begin as something natural, even beneficial, as you struggle to recover from a wound in your past. But over time, regret can devolve from a sadness to a sickness.
So what's the back side? What's the promise? We shall not have other gods, but we do have the one, true God—the promise of a God for us.
All other subjects—even Biblical subjects—were subservient to an accurate view of the Person and work of Jesus Christ for sinners.