A thought by Henry Cloud, from his book, Never Go Back: 10 Things You’ll Never Do Again (p. 6). Howard Books. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
Now to some, repentance is not a very positive term, but it can be.
Henry says, “People think of ‘repentance’ as having to do with a parent, preacher, nun, or teacher scolding them and saying, ‘Don’t ever do that again!’ It is a religious term with a lot of cultural baggage. It feels like a parent or authority figure telling you to stop doing something, and then you feel like you just have to do it. That is a problem.
“The reason is this: whenever we get our backs up at a message that says we should not do something again, it shows that we are out of touch with life’s realities. Picture a parent telling a toddler to ‘repent’ from running into the busy street. The toddler just looks at the parent as if the message or the messenger is the problem, sets his face in determination, and says, ‘Just watch me.’ Dangerous indeed.”
He goes on, “Such is the nature of the word ‘repentance.’ Repentance is the adult equivalent of stopping at the curb and making sure no cars are coming before you cross the street—especially an adult who has experienced the reality of being hit by a car once before because she didn’t look. It is the realization that she does not want to do that again. It is not going to feel good. It felt really bad last time and it will feel bad again. And the realization of and commitment to that reality are stronger than the need, desire, or impulse to do it; so we are forever changed. We are no longer people who run into the street or hire the wrong person when we knew better—losing a lot of money, time, and energy in the process. We have repented, or literally ‘changed our mind and turned away’ from that way of doing life. That is what the word actually means. In another word, we experience growth. Or maturity. Or better yet, wisdom.
“I would love to see myself and the people I care about and work with have realizations every day and begin saying, ‘I repent! I will never do that again!’ and mean it. That would indicate that we see the word as the positive force it truly is: a gift from God.”
He then says, “But, human as we are, I won’t try to force the word ‘repent’ on you. You can call it something else if you want. What I will try to do is to help you to see the power of ‘getting it,’ which means really, really, really changing your mind about some key realities that are keeping you from what you want out of life—personally or professionally—and turning from them. Whatever you call it is okay with me. I think ‘repent’ is cool, but ‘never go back’ is okay, too.”
This is so important for us to see. There are things that we have done that we need to turn from, to “never go back”, aren’t there?
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