Be truly sorry

"Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishment."

(Joel 2:12-13)

When our children are little and they do something wrong, we often tell them to "say you're sorry" to the person they've offended. We want to instill in them the habit of apologizing for their mistakes and errors. Unfortunately, over time that sometimes morphs into a half-felt, "sorry..." and we know they aren't "feeling" the full weight of the apology.

It's easy for us adults to spot those "Sorry, not sorry!" apologies in our children and grandchildren. Heck, we can sniff them out a mile away! But we often aren't able to recognize them in our own lives.

In the book of Joel, the people of God have gone through numerous disasters. Wars, invasions, and crop devastations have wrecked havoc on the people. God allowed those things to happen to help jolt them into recognizing how FAR they'd strayed from God's plan for their lives. And in the 2nd chapter of the Book of Joel, we get one of the most heartfelt and inspiring calls to repentance by God:

"Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing..."

It goes on to remind people how gracious and merciful God is, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. It's a beautiful passage.

But the part that hit me today was the "rend your hearts and not your clothing." Stop doing the outward things that "prove" to others that you're sorry (including saying, "Sorry...")... and instead change your heart from the inside! Because once we change our hearts, everything else will change with integrity.