In terms of both personal recovery and hope for a relationship, repentance is often the key; to recognise the wrong, confess it, turn around the attitude in accord with opposite behaviours, and then to actually prove the transformation valid months into years for the rest of one’s life.
You may be interested in this article if someone you know — a partner (or ex-partner), a son or daughter, a mother or father, a best friend — has promised to turn their life around.
It could be that your hopes actually are resting on their hopes for a true, full, no-turning-back repentance. Perhaps they’re not the only one who stand to redeem life from their recovery — maybe it’s your life, and the lives of those you love, that hangs in that balance, too.
Or, it could be that you’ve seen enough, you’re not buying it, and you fully believe they cannot turn it around. Perhaps they don’t have the character to face the pain required to humbly and sustainably about-face and walk in the ways of God.
Here are seven signs that will help you identify if they’re on the right track or not:
1. “The cross before me, the world behind me, no turning back, no turning back” — the words of I have decided to follow Jesus, the hymn. There is something in them that continues to see their own wrongdoing, but they’re not defeated by it; this just makes them more determined to grow. This is godly sorrow that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 7:10. It leads them to the experience of salvation that leaves no room for regret. The cross before them, the world behind them; all that matters is the cross.
2. There’s no blaming others, and even if there’s a hint of it, they’ll quickly pick themselves up, and they will own their mistake. From such earnest taking of their own responsibility, you just know they’re on the right track; they’re self-managing and they add no burden to you.
3. From this earnestness to self-account, where there is no judgment on others, just an innate interest in personal growth, there is a fearless curiosity for other sins they’ve committed, because they’re genuinely in the slipstream of God’s gracious power. They know that from this place there is nothing to lose and only much more that can be gained spiritually.
4. You can tell by who they are when nobody’s looking. They are sincerely oriented to please God. They have faith in God’s power and provision and the turning around of their fortunes if they continue being faithful and don’t give up. They’re living in the lap of Galatians 6:9.
5. Rather than resort to easy-fixes, tears without works to follow up, and excuses, they’re focused on long-term behavioural outcomes, and are no longer satisfied with a few days or weeks of results. Indeed, they fully believe that there is no value in, and indeed no future in, easy fixes. You don’t need to convince them; they’re convincing you through their actions. They’re no longer interested in words for they’ve learned that their actions are compelling. They’ve discovered that actions inspire.
6. You definitely get the sense that God is working a miracle in this person, and it’s working from the inside out. It’s almost as if the miracle is oozing out of their pores, because it’s not just the fact that they’ve turned their life around to give up the drink, the drug, the abuse, etc, the miracle of God’s grace is extending to all areas of their life. They’re hungry to walk humbly with their God.
7. You realise between point one and point six that there is night and day between the one who promises to repent and doesn’t (and cannot) deliver and the one who is literally the 1-in-100. This genuine one has been determined and teeth-gritted all the way because they want God’s name made famous — “See, God CAN do miracles!” See how they’re not interested in taking any credit. The seventh and final sign is that everything about them is all about God.
If you check through this list and find that the repentance, you’re watching is less than this, watch out, for it won’t stick.
Photo by Karl Fredrickson on Unsplash
No comments:
Post a Comment