If God’s forgiveness is really not dependent on anything we could ever do ourselves, then why do we need to ask for it?

When I was a pastor, I would often lead our congregation in the following prayer of confession as part of our worship gathering:

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, and what our hearts can no longer bear. Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a f…