The basic definition of Godly Sorrow that I was always given boils down to being sorry that you did something wrong rather than being sorry that you were caught. Godly sorrow is and should be the driving force behind our motivation to repent. But I believe it has somewhat unfairly been pigeon-holed into the category of repentance when its applications can be so much broader. At its essence, I believe that Godly sorrow is acknowledging that we ourselves and the world around us are not as we would like them to be, and then, despite how terrible our circumstances may be, taking upon ourselves the responsibility to go forth with faith and put our trust in our Heavenly Father that everything will come out right in the end. Let’s consider for a moment the myth of Sisyphus. A man is doomed to roll a boulder up a hill every day, only for the boulder to roll back down at the end of each day. The natural urge for Sisyphus, or for any of us in his position, would be to curse our fate, curse God for putting us in this position, and slump down at the bottom of the hill doing nothing. What is the point? Why push the boulder up the hill if at the end of the day nothing will change? How can we keep pushing on day after day and endure so much sadness? We can if we have Godly Sorrow. The greatest example of Godly Sorrow is that of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. He felt more sorrow and pain and anguish than any one ever had, more even than everyone ever had or ever will combined together. He prayed to His Father to remove the cup from Him. It was too much. It wasn’t fair. But then He said, Thy Will be done, and He pushed that boulder up the hill. And when it rolled back down, He prayed again, and then He pushed the boulder up the Hill again. Three times He prayed to His Father asking if there was any other way. But there was no other way. And that was Godly sorrow. It was recognizing that He didn’t get to decide what happened to Him, but only to decide what he would do in that situation. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo tells Gandalf that he wished the ring had never come to him. “So do all who live to see such times; but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” (JRR Tolkien). Godly sorrow is recognizing that we don’t get to decide what happens to us. We don’t get to decide our weaknesses. We don’t get to decide our illnesses and our disorders. We don’t get to decide what will break us or drag us down into the gulf of misery and despair. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. All we have to decide is when the moment comes that we plead with the Father, asking if there is any other way, and He says there is no other way, then we wrap ourselves in Godly Sorrow and we drink that bitter cup and push that boulder up the hill one more time and we tell ourselves that we do not understand why we must carry this burden but we will follow the example of our Elder Brother and carry it all the same. I know that there is power in Godly Sorrow. I know that the road to Salvation is covered in blood and sweat and tears - mostly our Savior’s, but we should count it no small honor to add drops of sweat and blood and tears of our very own to the path. I know that we can choose to wallow in misery and darkness at the bottom of the hill, crushed under the weight of all of the injustices heaped upon us, or we can decide today to push that boulder up the hill and stand for a moment in the sun, even if at the end of the day the boulder rolls back down and we have to face the same decision tomorrow. This is what Godly Sorrow means to me.
