On The Turning Away
To repent is to "turn away from". It is not a passive action, it is an active walking away from that which is wrong. You do it not because it is easy, but because it is right. Repentance is almost always difficult because oftentimes it requires excision of that part of you that craves and condones that thing you need to be rid of that's slowly killing you.
This is the basis for the understanding that repentance is granted from God; it's not something that we can do. Because oftentimes, we are too blinded or myopic to recognize the things that need repenting of. And even if we are aware of them, the allure and comfort of that familiar (no matter how completely it poisons us) is so overpowering that we will willfully walk back to that comfort that we know even if we intellectually recognize the danger. And the more you give in and feed it, the more ingrained that pathway becomes and the process is easier and easier to do, and harder and harder to walk away from. This is what makes childhood trauma, or even just an upbringing not rooted in scripture, so dangerous. When these pathways are set within the malleable, plastic mind of a child and left to solidify, it becomes nearly impossible to rectify later in life. Proverbs 22:6: Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
He doesn't depart from it because it has become his life; it is effectively him. And there's no way you can remove that from him without severely damaging his entire grasp of reality. He will rebel against anything that even remotely threatens this core part of his being, protecting the cancer that is killing him because the cancer is all he knows. The only one that can surgically excise that is God. And it will be assuredly painful in a way that few truly understand. Because you will effectively lose what you believe to be yourself. God knows better though, because He knows us more intimately than that. He sees past the trauma and is willing to put you through that hell and rebuild you on the other side, for your good. And let me just say, when you can finally see clearly again, sunrises are more beautiful than you ever remember. The soft cool light of the full moon is warmer than you ever thought it could be. The genuine smile of a child is more joyful to your soul than a trillion dollars. The vulnerable bearing of a heart is enough to bring you to tears of empathy and rememberance of your own undeservedness.
When God grants repentance, on the turning away, everything changes in ways that we can never fathom until we experience them. Feeling sorry is just another insidious form of selfishness. When you're willing to ask God, even beg Him, to drive all iniquity from you no matter the cost, you won't be prepared for what He may do to bring that about. But rest assured, on the other side, you will more likely choose the turning away from what needs repenting of, rather than be willing to poison yourself with fleeting comfort that it will bring.
God is mightier to save.
