“If God is good and grace is real, why do I still feel badly about my mistakes?”
A popular illusion of new Christians is that the rescue wrought for them by Jesus is supposed to save them from any sorrow about their past. In the shallow mythology we clutch, everything about our new life as believers ought to be “peace, light, and joy.”
Yet God’s Word poignantly asks, “Do you not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?” (Rom 2:4). Assured at last of God’s continuing affection for us, we look more honestly at how often we ignored His love, mistreated others, and damaged our own happiness. That new-found honesty naturally disturbs us, for we see clearly what we previously refused to see.
A heart made clean and new by God will also experience real sorrow for the past. As the psalmist tearfully admitted, “Against you—you above all—I have sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:4).
The grace that saves us also changes us, for real love would never leave us where we were. Embrace the new and better life to which God’s kindness has now led you, even through some honest tears.
Now stay in grace.
—Bill Knott