Godly sorrow

I think one of the driving forces of our culture in America is the desire for constant happiness. Because painful emotions are so, well, painful, we do our best to push them completely to the margins of our lives. For marketers, this is the perfect cultural climate, mostly because happiness is often so fleeting. They go ahead and prey on the idea that we should always be happy and that we should use such and such product to attain that goal, which works well for them because we quickly get tired of things and then have to get more to get back to that elusive happy place. The cruel trick of this system is that we end up feeling like there's something wrong with us, not the system, because we aren't happy all the time.

But what if pain really has a purpose? What if those unsettling feelings are important windows into who we actually are and who we are supposed to be becoming?

I'm reading this book right now called The Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III (by the way, don't you wish you could put "the third" after your name? It makes it sound much more professional and important, don't you think?) that basically talks about using our painful and dark emotions as a bridge to greater relationship with God. It is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it. In light of our American culture, what it got me thinking about was the specific value of the sorrow we are trying so hard to avoid feeling (but honestly, can never truly escape). The Bible has a lot to say on this topic, but here's just one verse that has really captivated my attention:

"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death" --2 Corinthians 7:10

No wonder the world is trying to avoid sorrow; perhaps they've picked up on the fact that their particular brand of it leads to death! It's perfectly natural, apart from God's intervention, to try to avoid pain at all costs. But do you catch what happens to the progression when God enters the mix? Godly sorrow --> repentance --> salvation. What an unexpected endpoint! Sorrow helps to save us?

Here's how I see that working: it's the difference between two words that are very similar and thus often confused, despair vs. desperation.

The great thing (or one of the many great things) about words, as English majors such as myself will be quick to tell you, is that they have such subtlety of meaning. Very rarely do two words mean exactly the same thing. Even synonyms usually have some subtle difference that separates them or some situation where one is more appropriate than the other; otherwise, why would we need two different words? Anyway, despair and desperation are two words like this. They are commonly used synonymously, but they are different and the distinction is an important one.

Despair means the loss of hope. A more accurate synonym for it would be hopelessness. It's easy to see where that leads: people who lose hope give up. This is sorrow leading to death, or worldly sorrow to use the terms of Paul in the verse above.

Desperation means the state of recognizing that one is in very serious and pressing need. A more accurate synonym for this one is brokenness. This leads people to do whatever is necessary to see that serious need be met. This sorrow, by God's grace, can often lead to repentance and life-- godly sorrow, as Paul would say.

See the difference? Despair looks at sorrow and sees no way out, so it refuses to deal with pain, opting to drown it out or die trying. Desperation looks right at the sorrow, enters in and cries out to be comforted. Despair sees no way out; desperation sees that there is only one way out and clings to its last chance for dear life.

On its own, of course, desperation isn't enough. But, when we realize that God is that way out, all of a sudden desperation leads right to salvation. We pursue God with single-minded fury and passion, turning from all the things that hinder us from getting to him (which is a pretty good definition of repentance, if I do say so myself), and holding onto the corner of his robe (see Mark 5:25-34) like our lives depend on it (which they do). End result: salvation, and no regrets.

Let me finish by going back to my definition of desperation, recognizing that we have a serious and pressing need. Is there ever a time when we don't have a serious need for God? No. Still, sometimes we feel like that need might not be too serious or pressing, that we can maybe handle things on our own for a little while. The trick for us is realizing that desperation is our constant state. There is only one way out of our problems, and it's Jesus. The only power that we have available to walk in comes from him, but he invites us to share it if we'll only admit we need it.

Maybe that's why God gives us sorrow and pain, to remind us that we need him and to give us access to his strength. God told Isaiah that he would give his people "the bread of adversity and the water of affliction" (Isaiah 30:20). Can it be true that these painful things are actually our food, the sustenance that we need to survive? It could be, if they drive us to God in godly sorrow. So, is it possible that by tuning out our pain and sorrow in all the various ways that we choose, we turn down God's great invitation to draw near and experience his power and salvation and life?

It's something to think about.