“I’m a coward.”
The person who openly tells you this is less in danger of the snares of cowardice than one who tries to keep you from seeing their cowardice.
This goes for any vice, any struggle, any weakness.
People who lay themselves bare before God and man and surrender their need to control their reputation are in less danger of just about every trap than those who are trying to maintain an image.
When you’re worried about how you appear, you’re fighting on two fronts. You have to fight the same struggles everyone else does, and you have to fight the appearance of fighting these and carefully craft and protect stories that make you look better. No one can keep that up.
Those who are raw before God and open before others can be startling, unsettling, and a little crazy at times. They are no less prone to fall into error, but they are far less prone to stay stuck there. When you know – when you can say – “I struggle”, that struggle suddenly loses some of its grip.
This is part of what ‘dying to self’ means. Let go of the illusion of your goodness. Let go the need to defend yourself from accusations. If someone accuses you of a fault your default should be, “I don’t deny it, I only hope to get better!”
Once that posture is adopted, anxiety melts away. The devil is disarmed.
I cannot claim this is my dominant posture. I have had the experience only seldomly, but enough to know it is the key to freedom. And I have seen many times people who appeared to be on a dangerous path, but were never dishonest with themselves or others about it, come back to life beautifully. While those who keep trying to maintain the good opinion of themselves and others slowly decay inside even while appearing okay on the outside.
Bare your soul to God. When you do, you won’t fear man. The Psalmist says, “What can man do to me?”