Line upon Line

Repentance can be an uncomfortable topic. No one wants to repent, although we always want to have repented—to have it behind us.

Why do we resist repentance? A lot of it is fear.

• Fear of judgment
• Fear of embarrassment
• Fear of disappointing the bishop
• Fear of losing a desired calling, being disfellowshipped or removed from membership

The consequences of repentance can sometimes seem more painful than the sin itself. 

President Nelson addressed this fear of repentance in his April 2022 conference talk “The Power of Spiritual Momentum.” He encouraged us to “discover the joy of daily repentance” when he said:

“Please do not fear or delay repenting. Satan delights in your misery. Cut it short. Cast his influence out of your life! Start today to experience the joy of putting off the natural man. The Savior loves us always but especially when we repent. He promised that though ‘the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed … my kindness shall not depart from thee.’ (Isaiah 54:10)” What a lovely word from Isaiah – kindness.

So what does repentance really mean? How can it be both painful and joyful?

Its meaning has changed over the years through different translations of the Bible. In the Latin, the words for “repent” means to “make sorry” and is associated with “punishment” or “penalty.” In the New Testament, the word “repent” is translated from the Greek metanoia or metanoeo, which means “to change one’s mind” or “to think differently afterward.” Note that it doesn’t mean “change one’s mind” as in “I think I’ll have the beef instead of the chicken.” It signifies a total change of purpose or worldview, to change one’s philosophy or understanding.

The Hebrew equivalent for “repent,” teshuvah, originates from the root “to return.” This word emphasizes a literal “turning around” or returning to God, focusing more on action than just regret.

In short, we should be less focused on the Latin punishment for sin, and more on the underlying Greek and Hebrew concept of turning away from sin and turning toward God, when we contemplate the opportunity for repentance. 

Repentance is not necessarily connected with serious sin requiring confession to the bishop. It also comes from distancing ourselves from the Savior. When I feel anxious, depressed, or out of sorts, it is often because I haven’t been nurturing my relationship with the Savior. And sure enough, as I return to scripture reading and prayer—conversations with God — I discover that His “kindness did not depart from me” – I departed from Him. And He is always there to welcome me back.

A call to repentance can be a call to return to a more active relationship with God. You can be filling your life with many good activities — work, school, friendships, service, family vacations – and still be in need of repentance.

True repentance leads to joy 

I want to share with you my first experience of active repentance. I was a teenager at BYU when I first asked to meet with my bishop. It doesn’t matter what it was about. Suffice to know that I felt out of touch with God—that God felt beyond my reach, that I would never be good enough to approach Him. 

My parents were members of the Church, but I was not raised in an LDS home. We did not have family prayer, read scriptures, or discuss the gospel. When our home teachers dropped by unannounced, my parents would jump up, turn off the tv, hide the tea cups and ash trays, and sit uncomfortably through the spiritual message. 

Nevertheless, they would drop my sister and me off at church most Sundays and come back for us when it was over, leaving us to puzzle out the doctrines and commandments we heard in sacrament meeting ourselves, and compare them to the way we lived. My father smoked and drank beer and ran around; my mother drank tea all the time. I knew that we were not measuring up as a family.  Once when I answered a question in Primary, a classmate said with disdain, “What do you know? Your father’s only a priest.” I didn’t know what that meant exactly, (and as an adult I have wondered how a Primary child even knew that about my father). But I knew from her tone it was bad, that it rubbed off on me, and that it seemed to be a permanent condition. 

I fervently believed two things that I learned from Sunday School and Sacrament meeting: that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was indeed the only true church, and — that there was no hope for me. How sad that a child would feel this way!

Of course, I was wrong. There was nothing I had done that could keep me from returning to my celestial home. I still remember leaving the bishop’s office that night. I felt lighter than air, happier than I had ever felt before. I had hope! It was a cold clear night with snow on the ground, and I literally threw my gloves high into the air, feeling complete joy—almost like a high-five with God. That was the joy of repentance—the joy of learning how to turn my life and my heart to God on a personal, daily basis. And I did.

You can feel that joy too as you daily repent—that is, as you daily return to the Savior. President Nelson offered a path of daily repentance—that is, turning daily toward Jesus Christ. He said:

“With frightening speed, a testimony that is not nourished daily “by the good word of God” can crumble. Thus, the antidote to Satan’s scheme is clear: we need daily experiences worshipping the Lord and studying His gospel. I plead with you to let God prevail in your life. Give Him a fair share of your time. As you do, notice what happens to your positive spiritual momentum.”

Let’s look at some examples from the scriptures of people who have returned as they have repented, and have felt the joy of a heightened relationship with God through positive spiritual momentum. 

The Woman at the Well 

The Jews looked down on the Samaritans and would go out of their way to avoid them, even walking extra miles to skirt the land of Samaria. In fact, Jesus’s disciples “marvelled that he talked with the [Samaritan] woman [saying] . . . why talkest thou with her?” (John 4:27). 

To me they might have said, “What does she know? Her father’s only a priest.”

Nevertheless, Jesus walked directly through Samaria, directly to Jacob’s well, and directly to the woman whose heart was ready for conversion. This woman had a sinful past, and Jesus knew it. When she told him “I have no husband,” He responded, “Thou hast well said, ‘I have no husband’ for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly” (John 4:17–18).

Many of us would have been ashamed or offended at being called out like this. We might react in anger or storm off in a huff. But not this woman. Jesus knew something even more important about her than her promiscuous past: He knew her heart. (John 4:13–14). She had felt her spirit quicken when Jesus said, “Whosoever drinketh of this water [at the well] shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” 

This Samaritan woman would suffer any embarrassment or discomfort to drink of that living water. “Sir,” she said simply, “I perceive that thou art a prophet” (John 4:19). 

And what did she do next? She not only turned herself toward the Savior; she brought her friends. The scripture says she “left her water pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”

What convinced her that Jesus was the Messiah? She knew Him, because He truly knew her. And he loved her. He didn’t punish her for past sins. He simply offered her the living waters, there, on the spot, and she accepted.

Sometimes we might think we aren’t worthy to approach the Savior, just as my teenaged self didn’t think I could ever be worthy of heaven. We might believe that we somehow have to overcome our sins by ourselves first, before we can approach God. But all we have to do is turn to Him, and he will make us worthy. 

After she heard Jesus’s wonderful message, this woman shared her newfound faith so compellingly that “many believed on him.” She became a true disciple of Jesus Christ, learning and then ministering to those around her. 

The woman who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears had a similar experience with the joy of repentance. We don’t know this woman’s past, and we don’t need to. Her example is in what she did next, not in what she did before. 

Jesus had been invited to dine at the home of a Pharisee named Simon, and while he was there, a woman arrived carrying an alabaster box of rich ointment, weeping and washing his feet with her tears. Simon scoffed “within himself,” thinking Jesus should have known better than to associate with this “sinner” (Luke 7:37-39).

Apparently reading Simon’s inward thoughts, Jesus gently chastised his host. He told the parable of the two debtors and then said: “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Then He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven” (Luke 7:44-48 NASB).

Remember President Nelson’s words: “The Savior loves us always, but especially when we repent.” Why? Not because he wants us to experience the misery of sin and the embarrassment of confession, but because he wants us to experience the joy of returning. He wants to wrap His spirit around us in a comforting embrace. 

The final example I’d like to share is King David. I won’t go over the details of his sin here. We all know the story of his seducing Bathsheba, getting her pregnant, and then having her husband abandoned on the battle field to die. It is a shameful, sordid story, one that David tried to cover up again and again, and by so doing, just kept making it worse and worse.

What matters most is how David repented – that is, how he returned to God. 

Shortly after Uriah’s death, the Lord sent the prophet Nathan to call David to repentance. He began with the parable of the little ewe lamb, in which a wealthy man with many flocks took his neighbor’s only lamb to serve to a traveler. Then Nathan asked the king’s advice on how this injustice should be handled (2 Samuel 12:1-4). David was incensed at the selfishness of the rich man and responded, “As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die!” (2 Samuel 12:5).

David had unwittingly issued his own death sentence, for Uriah was the poor man, Bathsheba was the little ewe lamb, and David himself was the rich man in this parable. Nathan proclaimed to David, “Thou art the man!”

The words sliced through David like a sword. He had spent the past several months trying to cover up his sin. But now the jig was up. Nathan knew, and God knew, and David knew they knew. And by his own judgment and verdict, he knew unequivocally that, king or no king, what he had done was wrong. Horribly wrong. He humbly acknowledged and confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord” (12:13).

That poignant, heartfelt confession was heard by the Lord. Nathan told him, “The Lord also hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die.” As simple as that, salvation was restored. There was room in the Atonement for David.

But actions have consequences, and David’s consequences were severe. Nathan told him, “The sword shall never depart from thine house,” and indeed, David suffered war in his country and strife in his own family for the rest of his life. Sons rose up against one another for power. The baby Bathsheba was carrying lived only seven days, despite David’s fasting and prayer on its behalf. His was not an easy life, and he would not be allowed to build the temple.

But that did not make David bitter. Constant repentance drew David closer to the Lord, and through his repentance we have a legacy of the psalms he wrote—psalms of worship, of supplication, of comfort, of remorse, and of praise. 

1. David described the agony of contemplating his sins, and how he “watered his pillow at night with his tears” (Psalm 6:6). In Psalm 32 he confessed his sin and acknowledged his responsibility for it, ending in a declaration of the joy of repentance: “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart” (32:11) From Psalm 51 we discover the process of repentance as he pleads, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (51:10). And in Psalm 16 David declares this joyful realization, “My heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell!” (16:8-10).

Through these stories we learn the true steps of repentance:

1. Recognize God’s goodness, mercy, and power
2. Confess your sins, before the Lord’s representative when necessary
3. Experience a complete change of heart by turning away from sin
4. Renew your relationship with God
5. Share God’s goodness with others 

Discover the joy of daily repentance.

Please don’t ever think, as I did so long ago, that there is no hope for you. There is nothing you have done that cannot be made right through the infinite power of the Atonement. In fact, my mother and sister came into full activity in the Church not long after that fateful meeting with my bishop. And a few years after that, my mother married a wonderful man, in the temple, where all four of us were sealed for eternity.

The Atonement is infinite, limitless, unending, just as Christ’s love is infinite and unrestrained. President Nelson promised: “If you feel you have strayed off the covenant path too far or too long and have no way to return, that simply is not true. Please contact your bishop or branch president. He is the Lord’s agent and will help you experience the joy and relief of repenting.” 

Repenting is returning—returning to the heavenly home that waits for us with open arms, open doors, and open windows. There is nothing so joyful as a high-five with the Lord. 

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Jo Ann Skousen serves on the public relations council of the California Orange Stake. She has taught seminary and gospel doctrine for many years and is the author of “Matriarchs of the Messiah: Valiant Women in the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. She has taught English at Rollins College, Florida; Mercy University, New York; Chapman University, California; and for many years taught in Mercy’s degree granting program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. She was a featured teacher in the HBO documentary, “University of Sing Sing.”