We have all done something bad or have made a mistake that we regret. When we fail, we can either embrace the wrong and continue doing it without remorse or we can reject the wrong and ask for forgiveness. It is a lot harder to reverse our momentum of moving in the wrong direction than doing nothing.
Even though repentance takes more work, it is necessary if we want to grow closer to God. When my kids do bad things, I get upset with them, but I always forgive them when they show me that they are sorry. Our Father doesn’t like seeing us do bad things, but as long as we show remorse, He will forgive us. We should repent not just to stay on the good side of our Father, but because we want to be in the best possible relationship with Him.
It is good to not only own up to our failures with God, but also our failures with each other. One of the reasons why Catholics go to confession with a priest instead of going directly to God is because our sins also hurt our community as well as hurt God. We are all one body in Christ. When one part is sick, the other parts feel the pain as well. Repentance is the first step in healing a wound. Even after saying we are sorry, the wound still remains, but it now has a chance to heal. When we don’t say we are sorry, we are leaving the knife in the wound and it won’t heal.
We need to remember that we are not perfect and will always make mistakes. However, we shouldn’t use that as an excuse to continue to sin. I am constantly finding home improvement projects around my house. Let’s also strive to find our own self improvement projects. When we keep working on improving our spiritual life, we can catch it before the weeds of sin grow too much and start to choke out the good in our life.
