The story is told of a young lad in Greece.  He was rude.  He was dishonest.  And he refused to take any responsibility for his misdeeds.  So his parents sent him to a Spartan Army camp for a couple of weeks to see if the soldiers could teach him some discipline.

He was assigned to be an aide for a soldier with a firm but kind disposition.  One of the jobs the boy was given was to care for the soldier’s pet fox.  During the time he was there, the boy seemed to be improving.  But no one knew that he was secretly planning to steal the fox and take it home when his time in the camp was finished.

Sure enough, on his last day there, he sneaked the fox out of its cage and tucked it under his tunic.  On his way out of the camp, the soldier he had served noticed that his fox was missing.  So he asked the lad where it was.  “I don’t know.  I haven’t seen it since yesterday,” was the boy’s reply.  By that time, the fox had begun to gnaw on the boy’s abdomen trying to get loose.

But rather than admit to his theft and make amends, the boy took off running toward home.  The fox continued gnawing on his abdomen trying to be free.  Less than one hundred meters from his home, the boy dropped dead from loss of blood and shock.

Thus it is with God.  Our refusal to acknowledge our wrong-doing also has dire consequences: “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.”  Isaiah 59:2 (KJV)

That is the bad news.  But the good news is this: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  1 John 1:9 (KJV)

As my grandmother used to tell me, it is better to “fess up” and get it over with.