sorrow

Godly Sorrow

~ Heather Davis ~ 6 Comments

Ever since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, rumors of possible revival are simmering in various places. I admit I am cautiously excited. However, this excitement is tempered by an understanding of the abject depravity of my fellow humans, self included. We are beings easily led by our emotions, but when those feelings fade, often so does our loyalty, inspiration, and yes, even our faith. What we need is not impassioned sentiment but genuine godly sorrow.

“As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us” (2 Corinthians 7:9).

Sorrow and grief over our wicked propensities is not where God wants to leave us, but it is the beginning of the transformation we must undertake to be truly useful to him. And here it is where the Great Shepherd ends up sorting the sheep from the goats, because not all people who hear the good news of the Kingdom of God will experience true godly grief.

There is another kind of sorrow, a subtle but dangerous mimic: worldly grief.

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:9-10).

As we take a hard look into the darkness of our own hearts, do we truly see the perversion there? Do we grasp the vast gulf between our degenerate state and the perfection of a holy God? If we do, godly grief comes of its own accord, and although painful, it is good. Godly sorrow is the lancing of the infected wound so it can drain and heal. Freedom from the infection of sin comes through the agony of first excising the rotten portion of our hearts. It hurts, but it’s a pain bringing with it an incredible relief.

With true godly sorrow for our sin, we are driven to turn away from the darkness, repelled by it, rethinking our lives and motives and everything. Godly sorrow turns us completely around away from self-focus and sin-focus to face the Living God. And we are undone by His majesty and kindness, for in place of the hollowness sin leaves behind, He offers us forgiveness, total healing, and a sure hope for a future brimful of joy.

But worldly grief is a different thing. The sorrow of the world is either a false sorrow or it is a sorrow that feeds on itself.

False sorrow leads to false conversion, the seed sown on rocky or thorny ground, the “faith” springing up with joy at the good news but turning away because of persecution or being choked out by pleasures, worries, wealth, hardship, life. False, worldly grief is as temporary as it is shallow, quick to come and as quick to ebb; a feelings-based or even attention-based lip service to God that never reaches the heart or results in a changed person.

Besides this false grief, there is another worldly sorrow, one more closely resembling true godly grief and yet masking a fiendish self-focus. This type is the grief that turns inward, fixated on the horribleness of self and refusing to turn outward and gaze upon the glorious Savior with healing in His wings.

Worldly sorrow either lies and only pretends to accept the gift of salvation, or it gnaws itself endlessly until nothing is left, spurning the gift of forgiveness offered by the King.

Either way, death is the result, because only in the transformation brought about by turning to God and surrendering to His way of being is real life found. The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Life. Death holds sway everywhere else.

And there is only one Door into this Kingdom. The only way a wicked human being can enter is by turning to the Christ, the Son of God who was sent into the world to live a life with no need of sorrow over sin because He never sinned. The Door to the Kingdom is Jesus, and there is no other way in. We enter the Kingdom covered by the righteousness of the Christ or we do not enter it at all.

We who, in godly sorrow, turn our backs to our sin may now march right through the Door, frame soaked by the blood of a spotless Lamb, and enter into a Kingdom like no other. A Kingdom that is among us and yet is not yet fully realized; a Kingdom where tension between sin and holiness, life and death, will last a little while more but where ultimately sin, darkness, and death will be overthrown and swallowed up by joy, light, and life.

A Kingdom all are invited to enter, but only some will be willing to part with the sin they hold so dear.

Will you come? Will you abandon yourself to godly sorrow so you may be saved from certain death and given over to the promise of pleasures forevermore and abundant joy at the right hand of God? Friend, I hope you will. Godly sorrow may bring weeping during the night of this world, but joy is sure to come in the morning of the Great Day of the Lord.

Not That This Isn’t Fun…

~ Heather Davis ~ 18 Comments

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Galatians 6:9-10

Life is tough. There’s just no way around it.

As I tap these words out, I am on the 23rd consecutive day of a headache (save a few hours’ break here and there) that has ranged in intensity from just annoying to someone please choke me out.

Still, even with the headache, I am incredibly grateful for the gift f this time: time to pause and breathe after the whirlwind of nonstop parenting and educating chaos that is homeschool; time to get my bearings and figure out if I have what it takes to make it as an author; time to come up with Plan B if I don’t.

Even still, life is tough. Not having the kids around 24/7 does not diminish their presence in my mind. They each have junk to wade through, and wading through modern teen junk is a sticky business. However, raising them, I am forced to think back to when I was a teenager <shudder> and remind myself that it could be much worse.

Yet thinking back also reminds me of the microcosm that is their worldview right now; a fact which was brought very clearly to the forefront in a conversation with my 16-year-old yesterday.  I mentioned a question he had asked me recently, and he replied, “That wasn’t recently. That was my sophomore year.”

I credit God alone that I held my tongue, but all I could think was, “Dearest son, do you mean waaaaaay back 2 1/2 months ago to your sophomore year?”

Oddly enough, in my mind, May still qualifies as “recently.”

And those are the small, nagging, daily problems: the relentlessness of pain, the thorniness of relationships… There are much bigger problems afoot. Loved ones with dementia, the burden on their caretakers, unsaved friends and family members who are literally destroying themselves from the inside out. Disease. Heartbreak. Cruelty. Suffering.

Then, too, there is the constant ache for friends who are suffering their own dilemmas and trials. Beyond that, my brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are being tortured, imprisoned, brutalized, cast out, and killed for proclaiming faith in Jesus as Messiah and Lord.

And the illogic. Don’t even get me started about the utter rejection of absolute truth, logic, or reason. I agree fully with Malcom Muggeridge when he said, “We have educated ourselves into imbecility.”

No doubt. We’ve reasoned ourselves right past rationality and into a highly amorphous state of emotionalism. As another friend pointed out, we’ve gone from hieroglyphics straight through the high works of prose and poetry all the way back to emojis.

We have embraced separation of God and… well, everything and flung our liberty in His face with wild abandon only to find that in reality, we have merely come full circle. We’ve followed our hearts only to find that the triumphant footsteps we have been walking in are our own.

What a weary business modern life has become!

I have to wonder if this future was in the mind of the Lord when He had His last, private discourse with the Twelve … or rather, the Eleven. Judas had already departed and was bartering the Messiah’s life for a small sack of silver.

At any rate, I have been reading John 15-16 repeatedly for the last several days and noted that Jesus emphasized the need for the disciples to remain, to obey, and to love. Remain in Me… if you keep my commands, you will remain in Me… love one another, but above all else remain in Me, for apart from Me, you can do nothing. 

I paraphrase, but read John 15 a few times. He repeats the word “abide” ten times in the first ten verses alone. (“Abide,” by the way, means to remain or continue). Emphasis is put on loving God, loving each other, and keeping His commands – and once He has reiterated his reiteration, He warns them of trouble.

The latter part of chapter 15 and much of 16 speaks much of persecution and sorrow, but also of joy. Living for Truth is tough, much tougher than going along with the societal current. Naturally, it is easy to become weary and discouraged.

But any careful reader of the Word will know that persecution and rejection were always part of the package. The Lord Himself warns them multiple times, even right up to moments before He is taken into custody… and through them, He warns us.

But please note that He first assures them of His love and their need to remain in it.

There is hope, but it is not here on this earth. Our hope is in remaining steadfast through the birthpains of life in the tangled mess of sorrow, joy, anguish, grief, suffering, and peace that is our lot, because someday it will all be worth it.

There is trial, but there is beauty even in the trial.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Thistle001

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away…

…When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
John 16:1, 21-22