The perfect solution

Repentance. Just hearing the word makes you have a sour face. There's that moment when you realize you know you've done something really stupid this time. There's that feeling of being trapped by the prospect of getting the classic I'm-Right-You're-Wrong look and suppressing that tremendous feeling of guilt. Then the battle rages on in your head with elaborate justifications flying through the air of your thoughts. "If they just understood my perspective..." "They should have just let me know..." It makes you think things might be better if we were all 4 years old.

Oops, that's the second sand castle today. I'll just say "Sorry." They'll love it.

When it comes to a life of faith, a walk with God, a relationship with the Almighty, or whatever you want to call it, repentance is probably considered the least fun out of all the things you might end up doing. I mean, there's praising, there's seeing miracles, there's meeting new people, there's giving glory through sports, and in the end there's going to Heaven. Maybe if repentance was more like playing sports people would make a two hour time slot every day just to repent with all their friends.

Hey! Don't hog the deep sense of guilt!

But the hard truth is that repentance, sincere repentance, is difficult. It sometimes takes time to see things from God's point of view. It sometimes takes effort to change your behavior. It sometimes even takes tears to receive a deep conviction. And sometimes, it takes you to the most uncomfortable places on earth. I'm sure many people have said these words or felt it in their heart: "I would rather go jump off a bridge than apologize to this person..."

But even if it's hard, it's still one of my favorite types of prayers. Why? Because repentance comes from the heart that says, "God, I want to be closer to you." "I know that I'm like this, but I want to be like that because you deserve better." "I know I did that and it hurt your heart, but I sincerely want to give you joy. Please, help me be a better person."

The reason I pray this way is because my head Pastor taught me in a way that I had never really heard before about repentance. I was always taught that either you repent once and that's it. Or, that repentance is something you do when you really, really can't help but do it. But when I started seeing repentance as a gift from God, it became something I really liked to do.

Think about this. You try to do something with all your might, but you fail. But because you have a strong mentality you get back up again with all your might -- only to fail again. Repeat that a thousand times and you might be left hopeless, ashamed, and a bit tired. It's possible that you might spend your entire lifetime on this one thing and never succeed.

This puzzle is easy. Try solving life.

Life is like that. You want to live it perfectly, but if you try to live it on your own you'll always get stuck on some problem. That's the limit of human intelligence. But if you listen to God's words and live trying to make His words your mentality by repenting, then even if problems come up, you can tackle them boldly because you know that you will eventually find the solution because God will help you.