Quit Licking the Bug Spray

Living the Word: Repenting

Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent and believe the gospel. – Jesus, in Mark 1:15

The word “repent” might summon images of a red-faced jerk with a sandwich board and a megaphone, or a sanctimonious preacher in a 60s musical. We might not know exactly what it means, but it sounds like the fun being sucked out of a room.

But consider three stories:

Once I was driving home from college, which involved getting on Highway 78 West to get from Alabama to Mississippi. (This was in the days before iPhones.) I made it to the highway, but after about 30 minutes of driving, realized I had gone east instead. The quickest way to make it right and arrive home involved turning around and driving back the way I’d come.

The other day, I caught my four-year-old squirting bug spray (with Deet, not the natural stuff) on her arm and licking it off, apparently enjoying herself. Out of love for her, I insisted that she immediately cease and desist from her chosen activity and hand over the bottle.

In Appomattox County, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union forces after a final battle, placing himself and his troops at the mercy of General Grant’s forces. Lee’s army would be disbanded, and his military career ended forever.

These examples capture the essence of repentance. The Hebrew word for repent, shuv, means literally “to turn,” or to do an about-face. If I’m supposed to drive west and I’m heading east, I can’t get where I’m supposed to go until I turn around and move the right direction instead of the wrong one. The Greek word, metanoo, means more or less “I change my mind,” which means I stop one train of thought (“I will consume bug spray”) and start another. It also includes a sense of surrender, or putting ourselves into another’s hands. Repentance isn’t primarily about feeling bad; it’s about turning or changing my orientation toward something.

But this does force the issue that makes some people bristle at the idea of repentance. It implies that there are things I might have to repent from: that there are wrong directions or wrong ideas in life. And it further implies that I might happen to be moving in some of those wrong directions or enjoying some of those wrong ideas. My daughter certainly didn’t enjoy being made to repent of her bug spray consumption. The idea of repentance – that Jesus commands we be ready to do it – requires me to accept that there are standards of right and wrong outside of my feelings, and that I might be in the wrong. In a crude but apt summary from High Fidelity, “I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have sh*t for brains.”

Thus far in meditation, we’ve considered how to “hear” God’s voice through the Word: to learn and love what is true, good, and wise. To use my driving story, we’re learning to hear where “home” is. Repentance is acknowledging that I’m not heading that direction and beginning to move the right way, so I might actually get home one day. It’s a vital step in coming to live in the truth of God’s Word.

What might it mean in practice? What do we do when we see ways our lives aren’t oriented in the same way as God’s Word?

1. Confess it

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:8-9

In Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step in recovering from addiction is admitting that I have a problem that’s larger than myself. It’s recognizing, I am doing this, and it is wrong. (I’ll give you three guesses as to what inspired this step!)

When we lived in Wilmington, my daughter cut her foot on an oyster shell badly enough that we took her to the doctor. You might think they’d stitch up the cut so it can heal; but oyster cuts often have debris in them that are hard to clean out, but that will get infected if they’re sewn into the skin. The wound has to remain somewhat uncovered to heal.

There’s a sense in which sin is like that. If it remains in the dark – if we keep it covered, from God and from our own admission – its infecting power grows. Healing from sin begins with bringing it into the light.

Confession doesn’t mean berating ourselves or working ourselves up into a frenzy of guilt; but it does mean acknowledging what is wrong in ourselves, without excusing or explaining away. In Psalm 32, David writes:

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 

I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
    and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Psalm 32:3-5)

God isn’t surprised by our sin: he’s omniscient and eternal, so he knows more of my sin than I do. But I can’t be prepared to really turn from it or be healed from it until I can face it openly by confessing it.

2. Turn from it

The next thing repentance might look like is turning, as we saw already. It means stating to myself, “this is wrong, and I should reject it,” and making a fresh commitment of the will to do just that.

Turning might be a specific rejection of a specific sin, or a general admission of brokenness. See these examples:

My feet had almost stumbled,
    my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. – Psalm 73:2-3

Here, David confesses a specific sin: envying people who are prospering despite rejecting God.

We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. – Isaiah 64:6

Isaiah’s confession is of a general, overwhelming state of sinfulness.

The point of turning away from a sin isn’t to beat ourselves up enough to impress God; we’re made right with God by faith in Jesus, not by any act of penance or contrition. But verbalizing our guilt reminds us of our deep need for God’s grace; and verbalizing our rejection of sin can help us cultivate a holy hatred of it that helps us reject it in the future. Just as we can train ourselves to love what is true, we can also train ourselves to hate what is evil in ourselves.

3. Starve it

When Paul tells the Colossians, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (Colossians 3:5), the Greek word rendered “put to death” means more like “let die.” Less execution, and more starving. I would love to be able to drag my pride out the back door, bury it, and come back forever a humble man; but unfortunately, that ain’t how the sin nature works.

A Beautiful Mind is based on the true story of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who also had schizophrenia. A key plotline of the film involves Nash gradually realizing that several of his “friends” are, in fact, hallucinations. Nash realizes that the hallucinations will never go away; but he learns that if he does his best to ignore them rather than interact with them in any way, they have less influence over him.

Repenting of our sin nature often feels like that. Its voice remains in our souls, like the singing of the sirens; but if we can ignore it, drawing closer to God instead, we’ll gradually find its appeal diminishing.  

When we hear God’s word, repenting – confessing, turning from, and starving our sin – is a vital first step. We’re always tempted to go wrong, and always in need of God’s grace. Whether we experience a specific conviction over a particular sin, or just generally acknowledge our guilt, repentance prepares us for the next step: receiving the good news of the gospel afresh.