What Is Godly Sorrow?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Mormon 1-6 in a lesson titled “I Would That I Could Persuade All … to Repent.” The lesson was introduced with the following information. 

Mormon spared us the “full account” of the “awful scene” of wickedness and bloodshed that he saw among the Nephites (Mormon 2:18; 5:8). But what he did record in Mormon 1-6 is enough to remind us how far people who were once righteous can fall. Amid such pervasive wickedness, no one could blame Mormon for becoming weary and even discouraged. Yet through all that he saw and experienced, he never lost his sense of God’s great mercy and his conviction that repentance is the way to receive it. And although Mormon’s own people rejected his pleading invitations to repent, he knew that he had a larger audience to persuade. “Behold,” he declared, “I write unto all the ends of the earth.” In other words, he wrote to you (see Mormon 3:17-20). And his message to you, today, is the same message that could have saved the Nephites in their day: “Believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. … Repent and prepare to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ” (Mormon 3:21-22).

Mormon’s story of preserving the records of the Nephites can be seen in this video titled “Mormon Preserves the Record” (26:37 minutes). As with most Come Follow Me lessons, this lesson covers several principles: (1) I can follow Jesus Christ regardless of what other people do (Mormon 1-6), (2) They did not realize that it was the Lord that had spared them (Mormon 3:3, 9), and (3) Jesus Christ stands with open arms to receive me (Mormon 5:8-24; 6:16-22).

This lesson will discuss a fourth principle, “Godly sorrow leads me to Christ and to lasting change (Mormon 2:10-15. We will begin with the scripture block.

10 And it came to pass that the Nephites began to repent of their iniquity, and began to cry even as had been prophesied by Samuel the prophet; for behold no man could keep that which was his own, for the thieves, and the robbers, and the murderers, and the magic art, and the witchcraft which was in the land.

11 Thus there began to be a mourning and a lamentation in all the land because of these things, and more especially among the people of Nephi.

12 And it came to pass that when I, Mormon, saw their lamentation and their mourning and their sorrow before the Lord, my heart did begin to rejoice within me, knowing the mercies and the long-suffering of the Lord, therefore supposing that he would be merciful unto them that they would again become a righteous people.

13 But behold this my joy was vain, for their sorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin.

14 And they did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits, but they did curse God, and wish to die. Nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their lives.

15 And it came to pass that my sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open rebellion against their God, and heaped up as dung upon the face of the land. And thus three hundred and forty and four years had passed away (Mormon 2:10-15).

Mormon saw that his people were sorrowful, and he hoped that they would repent. However, he realized that “their sorrowing was not unto repentance” (Mormon 2:13). They did not feel godly sorrow but worldly sorrow. The difference between the two types of sorrow can be seen in verse 14: Godly sorrow moves people closer to Christ, while worldly sorrow causes people to curse God.

Sister Michelle D. Craig, then First Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, said the following in the October 2018 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

These prophetic calls to action, coupled with our innate sense that we can do and be more, sometimes create within us what Elder Neal A. Maxwell called “divine discontent.” Divine discontent comes when we compare “what we are [to] what we have the power to become.” Each of us, if we are honest, feels a gap between where and who we are, and where and who we want to become. We yearn for greater personal capacity. We have these feelings because we are daughters and sons of God, born with the Light of Christ yet living in a fallen world. These feelings are God given and create an urgency to act. [Emphasis added.]

We should welcome feelings of divine discontent that call us to a higher way, while recognizing and avoiding Satan’s counterfeit—paralyzing discouragement. This is a precious space into which Satan is all too eager to jump. We can choose to walk the higher path that leads us to seek for God and His peace and grace, or we can listen to Satan, who bombards us with messages that we will never be enough: rich enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, anything enough. Our discontent can become divine—or destructive.

Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ live on a higher, holier level than mere mortals like you and me. IF we want to return to Their presence and to become like Them, then we must prepare ourselves to do so. One of the ways that we can move to a higher level is to allow divine discontent to help each of us to become the person that we want and need to be.