Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 2 Corinthians 7:10 NIV
Like many people, I have my own “rope” story. A story of how I turned full speed from God, and spiraled down into a world I never dreamed I would wallow in. The details are irrelevant; what matters is the rope. We tend to think of rope as being much, much longer than it is round, like a garden hose. Hence the saying, “just give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves.” That’s a pretty good example of the “worldly sorrow brings death” part of the scripture above. I’ve told my rope story to many people, describing how God gave me rope as I sprinted as fast and far as I could from anything resembling His Way, only to have Him say, “Okay, that’s enough.” He then pulled me back with that prodigal rope instead of cutting it and letting me go. So that’s one visual of how free choice can lead to a feeling of distance from God where you’re saying, “Where are you, God?”
The revelation I received while praying this morning was that the rope is very thick, and it intertwines us with God because He is always right there for us in the form of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. He’s never distant. So we actually don’t ever get away from Him, rather we hack away at the strands that connect us with God, and the resulting trauma is what we perceive as distance. We’re in it together, but by our choices, we’re making weaker the strands that connect us with our loving Creator. The strands of obedience, humility, and love are frayed by self indulgence, haughtiness, and complete disregard. We’ve abandoned the fruit of self-control and handed control over to the enemy. It’s not about where God has gone. He’s in us. We’re just ignoring Him. God loves us like He always has, and patiently yearns for His Spirit to be let out of our selfish hearts. God can’t wait to shower us with forgiveness, mercy, and more grace than we can imagine.
The Hebrew word for repent is teshuva, and literally means “to return.” When we return to God, repent, the frayed strands caused by our self governance are healed, and the rope we share with God is restored. When we choose to put God back on the throne we thought we’d occupy, He does with us what the dad in the story of the prodigal does: He adorns us with love and His favor, and He throws a party in heaven with our name on a chair by His side.
Part of Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “A threefold cord is not easily broken.” That would be the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit who intertwines us into a cord so strong it cannot ever be broken if we so choose.