repentance isn't easy

St Theodoret tells us about repentance today in A Year with the Church Fathers. He tells the story of a time when the emperor had thousands of people killed... and then tried to go to church. St Ambrose confronted him (no small feat) and told him he could not enter the church until he had repented. Since his actions had been so public and so bloody, his repentance had to also be public, and it had to be real. The emperor publicly repented for months, before Ambrose finally accepted him back into the church.

How does this story fit into our lives today? Our sins have consequences. Yes, God forgives us when we repent. If we sin 1,000 times this week, He forgives us 1,000 times. But the time we spend sinning, we won't get back. The lives we hurt through our selfishness won't magically be free from pain. The effects to our reputation won't go away.

There is good news... God can and will redeem everything in our lives, past, present, and future. He will work everything for our good. He will make all things well, and all things well, and all manner of things well, in the words of Julian of Norwich.

But the repentance that we face in order to cooperate with that redemption has to be real. Sometimes it has to hurt. Sometimes, like with the emperor, it will involve tears. Let's repent genuinely, so that we will experience His genuine redemption.

God, please help us make a good confession, and truly repent of our sins, so that You can make us new.