Repentance

So I was reading Matthew yesterday and I was doing it just to get it done. To Check It off. To make sure I wasn't slacking off too badly. So I stopped at Jesus' conversation with the Rich young ruler. I have picked up a philosophy major this semester...with one semester left. And I was taken back later in the day by the memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's analysis of this passage in "The Cost of Discipleship". I found that I have been treating Jesus like a moral teacher. "How would you say, teacher, that I can best live? Oh, yes, I have done that..."Certainly there is so much said about moral issues, but the heart of things is our relationship with God and others. Love. I have been learning that Love is so much an act of the will. I have lived a life based on emotions and "feelings". "Lord, let me feel you now!"I pray. How selfish! I think my new prayer is: "Lord, help me to be faithful to you my love EVEN when I don't feel it. Conform my will to your love. You are the rock... make my will solid in you. "
My will in the relationship failed. It is weird for me to type this. I lost my love. It trickled down into every aspect of my life. Even to my affection for those I care about very much (and they will not know unti I tell them). I honestly was left turning around and leaving sadly... counting myself rich.
I was sitting in chapel and the word repentance was used. I lost track of all else that was said and became transfixed on that one word. People define it as a turning away from, renunciation of, and rejection of the action... but it hit me: For me repentance requires turning away from MYSELF. Turning from myself and turning towards the Face of Christ. As we walk away sadly, we are looking at ourselves not the Lover of our Soul.
Oh, to have a will that will not be shaken by my wavering emotions and feelings. (please know that I believe they are there from God, but I don't want them to be the final say in defining my relationshps. I don't want to be a slave to them... only to a will conformed to Christ.)

I'm done...