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 all do it. It comes naturally to every human being. Since the Fall, every man and woman, every child, everyone imagines he can use experience and knowledge to figure out God.
She was my friend, walking through marriage troubles. Her husband was unfaithful to her, with the technicalities and carefully drawn lines of “not technically sex” and justifying himself, which had wounded her deeply.
Jesus says that none of our goodness is good enough to pass muster. Likewise, none of our badness is bad enough to propel us outside Jesus’ death for sin.
Last week we talked about what happens when the Triune God shows up, and how we practice this every week in Sunday worship with the Trinitarian invocation, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Did Jesus ever marry? Yes, He married you!
Christians have long enjoyed an absurd love affair with white-washing biblical saints.
When I hear the word “repentance” my mind quickly goes to those old terror inducing Chick Tracts.
As a bass player, when I listen to music, I listen for what the bassist is doing. But, when I listen to music in my 2004 Honda Civic I have a problem: only one of the four speakers works.
Amazing things. That’s what happens when the Triune God shows up in Jesus Christ.
This is a weekly article series working through the book of Revelation.
The Confessions instead look forward and provide a critique of the world and of all my various religions and idolatries.
But when we trust Jesus, then we close our eyes to it all and say, “Heavenly Father, I’m your child.