Godly Sorrow Leads to Repentance

Today I read 2 Corinthians 7 where the main focus to me seems to be Paul's talking to the Saints at Corinth about sorrow and Godly sorrow verses the sorrow of the world. We have talked about this before but it is so important that I think it bears talking about again. Since the Bible and Book of Mormon are companion volumes of scripture, it makes sense that they would deal with the same topics and overlap on the things that Heavenly Father wants me to talk about. And besides, with a topic as important as Godly Sorrow can we really say enough about it?

Mormon in his time called godly sorrow the sorrowing to repentance as compared to the sorrowing of the damned. Have you ever seen someone, or perhaps even in just a movie or TV show, where someone apologizes and the other person says that they aren't sorry, they are only sorry they got caught? I have met several people like that. For example, most kids are not very sorry when they do something wrong, they are only saying sorry because their parents tell them they have to. This is not sorrow that is going to lead to a change of heart. When we have done something wrong, we should feel sorrow because of it and desire to change, not because we were caught, but because we have offended God.

As we have talked about before, godly sorrow means caring more what God thinks, than what the world thinks. Do you remember when you were younger and you and your sibling got in trouble, and you had to go into the closet until you could come out with your arms around each other and say you were sorry like you meant it? I visited that closet a LOT as a kid I must admit. Because I could say the words, I'm sorry, quite easily enough, but to mean them means to swallow your pride and gain humility. That is not easy to do no matter what age you are.

The purpose of feeling sorrowful when we have done something wrong is to help us have humility and help us make the changes we need to make in order to become more Christlike. The Light of Christ in each of us let's us know when we have done that which is wrong and causes us to burn with shame and guilt because we need to make changes in order to become a better person. God never does anything without a purpose and something like this He definitely designed. There are times where we suffer the natural consequences of what we have done, but feeling sorrow for sin and wrongful actions is only one of them because that is the way God designed it.

We are the children of God and we have the potential for divinity in each of us. You wouldn't always know it to look at the world around us, but each of us has the ability to become more than we are today. We can all become better sons and daughters of God. We have to want it though, it has to be our desire. God will always give us what we want, no matter how much it breaks His heart. Until tomorrow.