Confessions of a Killer

This past week a man confessed to a murder police have been trying to solve for thirty-one years. Although the man’s actions were vile and contemptible there is something to be said for a spirit that knows it violently transgressed and can find no peace unless and until the truth be told. News accounts of the confession note that the killer admitted to family members shortly after the murder took place that he had “done a bad thing.” He never elaborated on that “bad thing” until recently. I believe the Holy Spirit kept his heinous actions at the forefront of his troubled, twisted mind. I believe the Holy Spirit prompted the man’s relatives to remember to make mention of the “bad thing” and bring it to the authorities attention. It’s not in man alone to want to admit their shocking sins. Only the Holy Spirit could cause us to want to plead guilty to what we’ve done wrong. I used to think the three that took my brother’s life would confess, but that time has past. The Holy Spirit stops talking to a person when that individual becomes deaf to His voice. The Bible describes it as hearing, but hearing not. There is no point in setting the alarm on a clock in a deaf person’s room. He won’t hear it. Likewise, a person can condition himself to not hear an alarm clock ring by repeatedly shutting it off and not getting up. The day finally comes when the alarm goes off and she doesn’t hear it. That must be what happened. My brother’s assassins visit my website every now and then. They’re proud of what they’ve done. I think they’re cowards and liken them to cowboy Ike Clanton waiting in the shadows to ambush Wyatt Earp, or Wiley Lynn, the corrupt federal agent who shot marshal Bill Tilghman down in cold blood. The spirit that speaks to them will only ever remind them to keep quiet about what they’ve done and forget the lives they tortured. I’m probably wrong, but it feels like the man who confessed to murdering a seven-year-old boy in 1981 has a better chance at redemption than they do today.