Gotta Change

2Corinthians 7:9-10

Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance; for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.

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This can't go on,
Lord knows you gotta change.

Evil Ways by Santana

Repent, literally means turn away or turn around depending on your translator.

We know a way of living our lives, a way that we are comfortable with even if it's destructive. Self destructive, destructive to others, we can become comfortable with things that make us very uncomfortable. Really, it's staying with the devil we know over the devil we don't. But then, there are times in our lives, what some call a "moment of clarity" when the way we live our lives grieves us. There comes a moment when we come to know that there is more to life than the way we live it. But where does that grief come from?

What Paul calls "a godly grief" is a product of the Holy Spirit knocking on the doors of our lives. Scripture tells of a still small voice, but there are times when this voice comes with the roar of a tornado. It comes through loved ones. It comes through circumstances. It comes in dreams in an otherwise peaceful sleep. It can even come in dreams that make the night even more peaceful.

But this grief is of no use unless this grief leads us to that repentance. It's when we stick with the devil we know that we fail to listen to the leadings of the spirit, when we neglect the godly grief. At this point, we have to be reminded that turning to salvation brings no regret. This is what it means to say that God is concerned with us before we are concerned with God. Turning to salvation is our call, our holy vocation.

There is one big difference between Carlos' lyric and God's love though. The song has the words "You gotta change your evil ways, baby, before I stop loving you." This is true of the man whose house is dark and pots are cold, but this isn't true of God's love.

God will never stop loving you. God will never stop loving us. We are called to love God, we are called to change our evil ways not to earn God's love but to respond to God's love. God came, lived, was killed, and rose again from the dead to take sin from the face of the earth, from the face of we who walk the earth.

It is our call to feel the godly grief of our lives to turn away from what's not godly to what is. This gives God joy, but failing this will not make God love us less. It just means there is more godly grief from the heavenly Father on the horizon.