Recently, our big pet goldfish suffered from an unknown disease – her tail is bulging up with scales protruding. As a result, she would just sit at the tank bottom motionlessly, most of the times. Seeing this, my wife and I decided to take some actions to save her from her misery. So, we stopped by a local pet store to inquire any possible cure for her. The clerk of the store suggested a fish medication for us to try. He also recommended that we cleaned the fish tank every two days. By following the suggestion and recommendation, we invested money and efforts in fish medication and changing tank water for the fish, during the following days. The initial result, however, turned out to be less effective than we would expect. Thus, we had to try another fish medication accompanying with the water changing routine all over again. After all the hoop-jumping, the fish’s condition finally improves significantly and she starts to eat and swim well. What a relief!

From this experience I learned a few things. Firstly, I find that the transparency of the water tank is very important. Without it, we couldn’t detect the initial symptom of sickness of our fish easily.  We may mistakenly think that our fish is just sitting there lazily because she is big and getting old. Secondly, we are willing to take action to save her – this costs us time, effort and money.

If we drill deeper a little bit, the transparency of the water tank is depending upon the effectiveness of water filtration system and availability of fresh air pump in the tank. The water filtration system is supposed to filter out fish’s excrement and keep water clean and free from poisonous deposits. The fresh air pump, in the same time, would provide oxygen into the water to support fish’s breathing in the water. Those two important systems would keep water in a transparent and healthy condition. When the water quality is deteriorated, its color becomes opaque and the fish would start to suffer.

Analogously, we can consider the condition of our faith journey is like the water in the water tank – either transparent or opaque. In other words, do we open ourselves to the Lord acknowledging our wrong-doings or do we harbor them without confessing to Him? Like the water in the fish tank, my wife and I couldn’t detect and solve the problem of the fish if it is NOT transparent. Similarly, when we harbor wrong-doings in our heart, we are also NOT transparent to our God. When we didn’t come before our Lord to confess our transgressions daily, our spiritual condition deteriorates. And, without daily devotion in reading God’s Word – the manna from heaven – we are like fish lacking fresh air and would suffocate quickly. The end result is we suffered from our iniquities. King David’s miserable experience is worthy for us to learn. He said, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 我閉口不認罪的時候、因終日唉哼、而骨頭枯乾。(Psalm 32:3)”

So, the question we need to examine ourselves is: Are we transparent to our Lord? When we live a transparent Christian life, our Lord can then fulfill His promise to clean our sins as He promised that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.我們若認自己的罪，神是信實的，是公義的，必要赦免我們的罪，洗淨我們一切的不義。(1 John 1:9).