Repenting.

The past week hasn't been so spiritually great. I felt myself becoming more and more distant from others and, especially, God. I tried praying, and I didn't know how to start or what to say. That's how empty I felt. But I asked for guidance in prayer and slowly began to repent.

It's always been a struggle for me to understand repentance. How much of a balance of repenting is "guilt" or "feeling remorse", and how much of it is "feeling restored/renewed"? I'm not a pastor or anything, so I could be wrong. But this is what I learned from scripture today.

When you know you've committed sin, you can't help but feel guilt/remorse/sorrow. For me, those feelings hit me really hard. I try to come back to pray and repent, but the feelings of guild/sorrow still remain. To me, it makes no logical sense to repent and feel instantly restored. I always feel like there should be a consequence for my wrongdoings. But then I read this passage in 2 Kings.

"Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, "Go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed." But Naaman went away angry..." - 2 Kings 5:10-11

"So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy." - 2 Kings 5:14

Just a brief background of this passage. There was a guy named Naaman with leprosy, and he went to find the prophet Elisha to be healed. If you look at the first passage, it says that Naaman was angry. Why was he angry? He was angry because he expected Elisha to perform a complicated/spiritual/mind-blowing miracle to heal him. But instead, Elisha told him to go take a shower in the Jordan river. It seemed so simple. Too simple.

And of course, Naaman goes and takes his little shower. Boom. He's healed. It was such a simple thing, and Naaman thought it was supposed to be so complicated.

This is exactly how I feel when I try to repent, sometimes. I come before God, expecting to be scolded or punished for my wrongdoing. I feel remorse and guilt. I feel as if I must earn the forgiveness. But then I was reminded of the simplicity of forgiveness because of Christ's death on the cross. There's no punishment. It's been finished. Just like Naaman had to take a simple shower to be healed, I need only to simply repent.

And of course, the whole topic of taking advantage of His grace is a different story for another time.