Latter-day Saint Life

4 Common Things That Might Be Keeping You from Repenting

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MR says: What simple things might be keeping you from repenting without you even realizing it? Learn how you can better access the power of the Atonement and repentance in your day-to-day life.

I’m a big believer in repentance. I’ve had too many experiences with its refreshing, guilt-freeing power to deny that it is totally worth the effort it takes.

But I've realized there are many things that keep me from accessing this redemptive power when I screw up, which is a real shame. So in the spirit of encouragement, I’ll share with you four things that keep me from repenting properly:

1. Thinking it needs to be a huge, long process.

For me, with my everyday screwups, thinking about repenting as a huge process often keeps me from repenting at all. My little sins don’t seem big enough to merit such a monumental effort, or else I don’t start the process because I don’t have the time (or energy) to give repenting due attention.

Elder Holland answers this conundrum perfectly. He says, "You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That’s another satanic sucker punch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, ‘I’ll change’—and mean it."

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