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I’m chipping away at the hard and fast rules and cultural misnomers with our religion and repentance is a new one for me. When I was younger (a wild teenager) I would totally berate myself for once again “messing up.” I was hard on myself, thinking that I had to “do all I could do” before I was forgiven and never knowing when I had done all I could do…because if I thought about it, I could
alwaysdo more. I hated the word “REPENT” because it brought up images of the radicals standing on street corners with sandwich boards proclaiming that the “End Is Near.”
However, I have lately come to think of repentance as simply: A CHANGE IN DIRECTION
That’s it.
Obviously there needs to be some sorrow for missing the mark, but perhaps not quite the depths of despair that I used to think we needed for every rule infraction. I am not sure that we need to have Alma, TY’s harrowing experience for each mistake we make.
But, at least for now, repentance will mean that I need to change my behavior and my thoughts. I need to change direction. I don’t need to dabble with depression for not living up to be perfect.
Brad Wilcox delivered a devotional that I found years ago that opened my eyes to seeing the Atonement in a positive way. It was really like hearing the “good news” that everyone else talked about. His thoughts have given me hope and made my heart lighter. Basically saying, “You messed up? Okay, say you’re sorry and don’t do it again.”
When my children were younger and they maybe hit another child, what did I say? Just what I typed above…”Say you’re sorry. Don’t do it again.” Now, if my child continued to hit other children (which they didn’t), I might have to remove them from the sandbox and help them to change their focus, but most of the time, feeling sorrow for hurting someone else was enough to deter any more violence.
So now, as I continue to raise my children, I will probably sound more like an evangelical when I tell them,
“So, okay – you messed up. You missed the mark. That’s okay. You aren’t supposed to get it right all of the time. Think about how you “got it wrong”, think about what you can do to “get it right” next time and change direction. Pray for confidence in your decision. Pray for help in avoiding the inappropriate behavior and “go thy way and sin no more.”
or something like that.
The more I think about the heart of the gospel being our journey to become the BEST person we can be…to become like the Savior…the more I think that we really should have good, happy, promising news…the edict to “change direction” sounds much more user-friendly than REPENT!
And, if our goal in this religion is to become like the Savior and to tell others about Him…then, okay! I’m in!
It’s getting through the other fodder that trips people up many times.
I love your new found attitude about repentance. I could 100% relate to your former views and guilt/shame when I heard the word repent.. and do more, do more do more.. I can kill myself trying to be perfect. This reminds me of a blogpost that Curtis posted on Repentance. I actually used it in my lesson today. “
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2008/01/rethinking-repentance.html Quote:The Bible Dictionary defines “repentance” as: “a change of mind, i.e., a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world”. That is absolutely fascinating – and it is this fresh view that is part of being poor in spirit.
I LOOOVED reading this for the first time because I have been terrified of God for as long as I remembered. I “knew” he loved me, but that he would also punish me at any given moment for not obtaining perfection and for messing up over and over and over again. I feel that I have repentance because since my FT I “view God , myself and others due to my “repentance process” also known to me as my “Faith Transition”.
Back when I first came to this site there was a quote from “pinkpatient” that impressed me so much that I wrote it down. It was something to the effect of “Perfection doesn’t work for me anymore.” I believe you are refering to “His Grace is Sufficient” by Brad Wilcox. Great talk. Unfortunately any talk of that theme seems to need to overcome the hundreds of other historical voices in our church that have stressed free will/accounbtability and downplayed grace/forgiveness.
When I give comments in SS it is usually on the importance of withholding judgement and being charitable. DW saws that sometimes I am perceived as trying to excuse lazyness/sin in myself. I think that we hold ourselves to such high standards that we sometimes think in our hearts “Why should anyone else get a pass/second chance? I busted my but to get it right the first time around. That isn’t fair!”
In German, the word for “to repent” is umkehren- which literally means to turn around. So I think you’re on to something there. I agree with you that, QuestionAbound, and others on this post that repentance is just a change of direction in following Christ. I also wish that the Church or church didn’t get so caught up in all the fodder. I agree. If you are interested, go to my blog and search for “A Fresh View” – or click on the topic “repentance”. I think you will like a couple of the posts there.
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