If, when we confess our sins, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrightousness,” why is it that sometimes I can’t forgive myself? Why do I insist on being miserable for some time further, as if to issue upon myself the punishment that has already been meted out upon Christ? On the surface this looks as if I really hate my sin, because even after repentance I am wrecked by the fact of it. But if I really hate my sin that much, why am I so prone to fall back into exactly the same pattern? Could it be that this punishment of myself and this outspoken disgust at my own sin actually isn’t meekness and contrition? What if it’s merely perpetuating my sin patterns, because my “repentance” is actually a cloak for pride.
What I really hate in these times is not actually that I hurt the people around me, nor that I was unfaithful to my God, but rather that I wasn’t perfect. That’s what I’m really upset about: I was forced to come face-to-face with the fact that I haven’t yet achieved the perfection that I demand for myself. Do you hear the triple focus of that last sentence? I…I…I. In this scenario I’m not really a transgressor against God in God’s universe. I use God’s standards, but I’m more upset because I’m a transgressor against myself.
Prideful people have always been unable to cope with their own failure. In most people pride will just refuse to admit their own failure. But in religious people, pride may take to showing that they are more disgusted by their own sin than other people are with theirs. For sure this is a subtle temptation! It looks like contrite humility; it’s actually a brazen declaration that life isn’t worth living if I can’t be perfect, and that since I must admit to being a sinner, I’m going to score better at being sorry than everyone else. Lord, save me from this prison of self-focus that would even turn repentance from sin against you into an opportunity to elevate myself!
The irony is that this desperate attempt to maintain control over my own situation as a sinner only leads me further into a prison. The despair is no act. Because I have committed to save and change myself, feelings of futility are inevitable. And then comes anger, bitterness, fear, loneliness. My perfectionism has led me to a place where recognition of my wrongs only makes me rage all the harder against the world and those who love me. This is not “godly grief” that “produces a repentance…without regret.” It is “worldly grief” that “produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10)
Ok, since I see the prideful way I’m prone to obsess over my own sin, what is the way to truly repent? First, it’s not wrong to see my sin as heinous. That is the reality of the situation, and it is good to own it as grievous before God, without any comparison to other people. But I must replace myself with God as Savior and Judge. I can’t change myself. I can’t grow myself and improve myself. I am a helpless beggar at the foot of the Cross. That’s all I am. And as I kneel there, I wait on God alone as my Savior. And when He saves, there are two fruits that simply aren’t present when I try to save myself: joy and freedom. I can confess my sins to others, weep together, pray together, and then move on. I can hear God’s judgment of “Acquitted in Christ!” And I can re-enter the situation without brooding self-hatred or hopeless anticipation of repeated failure. I can trust that it’s not up to me; the Holy Spirit can win where I have lost. But HE will get the glory, and not me. With true meekness comes self-forgetful hope, not self-obsessed wallowing.
Are you anything like me in these tendencies? If so, may the goodness of God not only lead us to repentance, but to the joy and freedom that true grief from the Holy Spirit finally produces!