I used to minister in a way where, if someone felt guilty or bad over their sin, I’d jump in quick, like “That’s not God, that guilt is from the enemy.” But the more I matured, the more I realized sometimes that is God. Sometimes you need to sit in the weight of your sin because that’s what breaks the pride enough to truly surrender. This is why God allowed the Israelites to wander the desert for 40 years, as judgement for the pride they refused to surrender. This is also how many today still die in a similar wilderness. Saved maybe, but never reaching the fullness of the promise He had intended for them.

There’s a difference between condemnation and conviction: One pushes you away from God and the other draws you closer. Yes, sometimes conviction hurts.

2 Corinthians 7:10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

There’s a kind of sorrow that doesn’t kill you, it saves you. That ache we feel, grieving over what we’ve done, sickness over messes we’ve made, that might be the very thing God is using to lead you into true repentance. It’s greater than surface level prayers and emotional apologies because it leads to a heart deep, “I can’t live like this anymore”, kind of surrender.

Early in my walk, I had received the Holy Spirit, but for a time, I was still walking in sin. I was bound and stuck and God allowed me to feel the whole weight of that, everyday. It was a mercy really, because He didn’t want me stuck there forever. It wasn’t until I felt a deep sorrow over my sin and got so sick of my own cycles that I actually gave it to God. Not a quick prayer, a full surrender. That’s when deliverance came, and not before.

There’s too much placating of sin in the Church. We’re so quick to rescue people from their discomfort that we end up robbing them of the only thing that can actually set them free: godly sorrow. The key isn’t to be protected from our sin, it’s actually to be so aware of it that we bring it to the Lord in sincerity to be dealt with, once and for all.

God isn’t trying to make you feel bad for the sake of it. He’s trying to break open the door to His grace, power, and freedom. I testify to that. Sometimes, what people need most isn’t comfort, but clarity. If they leave the altar unchanged or if they walk away with a false peace and no real repentance, we didn’t help them, we robbed them.

Let’s not rush people out of the very place God is trying to meet them. Let’s not call it compassion when it’s actually interference. Let them feel it, then point them to the cross. It’s only there that the sorrow will turn into freedom.