40 Days of Repentance
Our church has started on a special campaign of repentance. For 40 days, we will pray, meditate, and repent over one area of our lives per day. At the end of 40 days, it is our hope that our souls and lives will be awakened and healed of the junk that fills our lives and keeps us from the glory of God. We did not build this campaign up. We did not do any mass advertising within the church. We had only day of sign-ups for this yet 62 members of HCC have decided to take on this call towards repentance.
As of this writing, we are on day 5 of our repentance. Today’s theme is to repent of the Spirit of Rebellion. Last night in my prayer time, I realized how I utterly failed on Day 4’s topic. Day 4 was to repent from unthankfulness. I had such a busy day and it was filled with so much little things to do. I was hoping to work on my sermon, but was not able to. I started getting irritated at the amount of little things I had to do.
I was at a meeting that went into the evening and the meeting place was about 1.5 hours from my home and I just dreaded the drive back home. I dreaded being at this meeting. I dreaded how I had so little time to prepare for my sermon for Sunday. Even as I was thinking these things, I received a phone call last night and there will be even more added responsibilities that I need to take on. My heart was just not in the right place. I knew that I should be thankful for all these opportunities, but all I could think of was how I would handle all the added work.
Even when I got home, Heather was in a prayer meeting with some sisters from our church so I had the duty of putting our kids to sleep. To my surprise, all three of the kids went to sleep very quickly and I was so glad and decided to open up a couple of commentary books so I could study for my sermon this week. Within 10 minutes of opening the books, the sounds of my two daughters jumping on their beds filled the house. So, I went up to their room, scolded them and proceeded to put them to sleep. After a tough 1.5 hours, they finally went to bed. Whew!
It was close to 11 p.m. at this time and I was already dead tired. I just thought that I would just go to sleep at that point when I hear Joshua, my son, crying and crying. He somehow woke up. Oh no! It was back to the drawing board. I then went to his room and proceeded to put him to sleep. After another 40 minutes, all three kids were all finally asleep. As I was getting ready to sleep, I realized that Heather and I did not have our nightly prayer time. We are currently doing a special 21 Day Joint Prayer together for our church. So, we pray and I realize that it is well past 12:30 a.m. at this point.
Needless to say, I did not have a “thankful” heart. So my prayer last night was, “God, forgive me. I wanted to repent today of not having a thankful heart, but I failed miserably today. I was not thankful at all. I should be so thankful that you are extending my territory to do ministry. I should be thankful that you keep giving me new ideas to implement at church. I should be thankful that I can spend those great moments of putting my kids to sleep for you know how fast they grow up. I am so sorry, God. Please forgive me. I was doing so well up until now. I was doing so well on repenting up to today. Sorry for my attitude. Allow me always to be thankful.”
Then, the Lord speaks to me and says, “James, even the fact that you thought that you were doing so well means that you failed Repentance Day 3.” The topic for Repentance Day 3 was Pride. I immediately laughed like crazy! God is so funny, but SO right. Repentance is so hard. Is it hard for you too?
God loves those who repent. God loves those who draw closer to Him. I truly believe God called David a man after His own heart because David was a man of repentance (Psalm 51).
I realize that Satan hates repentance. When God’s people repent, Satan goes nuts. He pulls out all the tricks. He will attack you to make sure you do not continue with repentance. Everything might be peaceful and as soon as you start repenting, everything goes wrong and everything seems chaotic. I hope and pray that you will have spiritual eyes to see that this is the kind of battle we face. God is with you. Do not fear. Keep repenting and praying before the Lord. No matter how much noise Satan makes, he’s like a little kitten with a lion’s roar in the sight of God. God is gracious to hold and keep you. Trust in Him. I pray for powerful God-pointing hearts during our 40 Days of Repentance. I’m praying for you!