"Repentance is the vomit of the soul."

One of the joys of being a pastor is seeing people whom you have sought to minister to really 'get it' -- receiving God's Word in a transforming way. So it was heartening for me to receive a missionary update letter from a friend (and former parishioner) who is now serving as a missionary on a difficult field in Eastern Europe.

When I first knew him, he was a rambunctious, mischievous, fun-loving kid from a devoted Christian family. Now, some twenty years later, it was encouraging and convicting to read his insightful meditation on 'repentance' (the update letter was entitled, "Repent and Be Saved"):

"I want to share with you something that I have been thinking and reading about lately. That is the nature of true repentance. Because I only have a few short sentences to express a book of thoughts, I will only say one thing. True repentance is much harder that I would like to believe. I think it is much harder that we are often taught, in churches and in books.

"Thomas Brooks, a Puritan author, wrote, 'repentance is the vomit of the soul....' I have never met a person that likes to vomit, but we vomit because the body is rejecting something not good for it. It is true with repentance, a justified soul must reject the sins that plague it. It is messy, hard and painful and often leads to a humbling and suffering, but true repentance is worth it.

"If we but had a truer knowledge of God and could behold Him in His Glory, we would understand the great offense of our sin, and the need to repent.

"The good news in all of this is that the same grace God extends to save us is given to us to lead us into true repentance. In the words of another great Puritan, John Newton: ''Twas Grace that brought me safe thus far, and Grace will lead me home.'"