Perfection then Forgiveness???
The purpose of repentance is to attain forgiveness, and to feel better because we have been forgiven.
However, the Lord is not interested in endless punishment because His children can’t be perfect right now!
And neither should you be…
Not allowing yourself to feel forgiven (even in little bits) along the way will discourage you and cause you to drag your feet, delay, or just quit.
He didn’t say, “I will only forgive you when the process is complete… until then you need to suffer and be punished.”
Focusing on how far you need to go to improve and change often feels overwhelming and discouraging. We get tired and quit trying. We return to old patterns of thinking that we know don’t help us improve.
The Lord knows this, that is why…
The Lord is interested in improvement, growth and learning…
He is aware that repenting/changing takes time! (even our entire earth life)
If your sin is greater, it will take more time to attain forgiveness, or, it will take more time to change your thinking patterns to more healthy thinking patterns.
You will probably have to turn again to Christ often, as you work towards replacing old thinking patterns with new ones.
This does not make you unworthy, or unloved.
In His love, Christ allows for improvement OVER TIME.
He is patient with you, however long it takes.
He will stay with you in the messy, and compliment your successes, big or small.
He will point out your next area of improvement, and…
He willingly recognizes your efforts and encourages you on.
He forgives you along the journey!
Allow yourself to feel those moments of forgiveness also! It will help you continue on.
–Where are my perfectionists… do you struggle with this? Tell me what you learned reading through this?
**
All or Nothing
Another thinking error I see often is…
I will NEVER do that again!
Sometimes this is a very doable goal…
But often it is not.
For example, I promise to NEVER yell at my kids EVER again.
Two days later, I feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and irritated. Things in my life didn’t change and my thinking hasn’t changed during these circumstances either…
I find myself yelling and screaming again.
Again I pledge to NEVER yell at my kids EVER again.
Do this enough times and you start to feel like it is HOPELESS!
And hopelessness causes us to mope, beat ourselves up, wallow in self pity, hide in social media posts, and do nothing.
Perhaps a better way of thinking about these kinds of situations is…
By making smaller goals… like, “Next time I feel frustrated I am going to write down why I feel frustrated.” And maybe I’ll do this multiple time to help me see patterns in my thinking.
Sometimes this happens after I yell, again. But if I take the time to discover what triggered my yelling – I am closer to knowing how to manage my frustration later.
Committing to use this tool over and over again, miraculously helped me learn to overcome my impulse response to yell and scream when I became frustrated.
I began to pause, make a shift in my thinking, have more patience with my children and myself.
Overtime, I noticed I stopped yelling as much, I seemed to have more patience, I learned better ways to manage my time, and how to communicate my expectations more clearly. I learned a lot.
This is what DAILY repentance actually looks like in a life, my life.
It’s kind of messy, but little success added up overtime. This pattern of turning again to the Lord and allowing little changes to happen in my thinking is the process of daily repenting…
And there is lots more room for JOY along the way.
–Where are my all-or-nothing thinkers? Where do you struggle through this process? Is it okay to stumble AND make progress at the same time?
