Friday, August 2, 2019

Wallace F. Bennett on the Nature of True Repentance



Like faith, repentance is a universal principle, applying to all aspects of our lives. Like faith, it is a living force and its power can be increased by use. Like faith, it is a continuing and enduring quality of righteousness. Today’s repentance covers only the errors of our yeserdays. If we repeat these same mistakes tomorrow, our repentance was not real or valid. But as we move up the scale of development into new and more complex conditions, there is the risk of other different mistakes, and we must never allow ourselves to reach a spiritual state wherein repentance is impossible. But while faith and repentance sustain and continually refresh and strengthen each other, they are not parallel. There always must be faith before repentance can follow.

To the Mormons, repentance is much more inclusive and extensive than a mere expression of regret. It is a process with many vital phases. We do not repentant unconsciously. We need to know the purpose of repentance. We need to be able to recognize the mistake we have made and make some appraisal of its consequences. This should lead to a true sense of sorrow for our fault, strong enough to humble us, to make us realize that it represents a weakness that we must overcome, and lead us to ask God to forgive us.

But even if God does forgive, the problem of turning a negative experience to our advantage still remains with us. But an exercise of will sustained by faith, we must determine to move again in the right direction, and in order to make up for what we lost by our mistake we must move more surely and more rapidly. Sorry and determination, however, humbling, are not enough. To make our repentance effective, we must add to it a definite plan of action to be entered into and maintained in the face of ever temptation.

Usually when we make mistakes of which we should repent, we involve other as well as ourselves, often injuring them. Our repentance cannot be complete unless we ask for their forgiveness as we ask for God’s and make full restitution if that is possible.

True repentance, then, is one of the most vital keys to growth. It is effective only when we can permanently cast off the error, which, if persisted in, would weaken or destroy us. Having done this we must put in its place a truth is made stronger as the error fades, and thus we move toward a better life. (Wallace F. Bennett, Why I am a Mormon [3d ed.; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1964], 220-21)