Godly Sorrow versus Worldly Sorrow

UV 3197/10000 Godly Sorrow versus Worldly Sorrow
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5 v 4
I just received a mail from a classmate and friend that in the past few years, he had suffered some setbacks in health and was going into depression. His friends helped to pull out of such depression. Depression is like a deep pit from which we cannot emerge or climb out on our own. As human beings, we have no permanent enemies other than sorrow and anxiety. But Jesus is the great Comforter. When He enters our hearts, sorrow and anxiety will flee from us as defeated foes. Scripture says that godly sorrow is for our benefit while worldly sorrow leads us to the pit of destruction. The Holy Spirit is the initiator of godly sorrow. Godly sorrow is true repentance that causes us to change for the better or improve in every domain of our lives. It leads us to take practical steps to conform to the image of Christ in us. It gives us the inner strength to endure the sorrows that we can do nothing to change.
While worldly sorrows cause us to be weak, godly sorrow strengthens us from within. We are anointed with grace and power to overcome our inner weaknesses. The joy of the Lord or an inexplicable peace that comes from the presence of the Lord in us overtakes our hearts and minds. In place of our erstwhile weaknesses and afflictions, the joyful spirit replaces our mourning. He turns our mourning and groaning to song and dance. The mournful rhythms of death are replaced by the rhythms of eternal life. The Lord girds us or covers us with the clothes of His salvation. A peace that passes human understanding envelops us and we become oblivious to the circumstances around us. The Lord replaces our regrets with fulfilment and hope, our tears with laughter.
When we are more concerned about what pains, grieves, hurts the Lord, He will be more concerned about what hurts, upsets, grieves us. Our tears become the seed of a future good. The Psalmist puts it beautifully when he says that the Lord collects our tears in a vial. When we sow in tears, we reap in joy. When we are so comforted, restored, assuaged, praise and thanksgiving continually flow from our hearts and lips. Praise and thanksgiving are therefore, signs and symptoms that we are spiritually alive. The uni-verse states that we shall be certainly comforted even as the Lord heard the cry of the barren Hannah and from her raised a great prophet Samuel. Even our nearest and dearest may not discern what troubles our hearts and minds but the Lord sees through the mist in our eyes, deep into our innermost being. He reaches into the deep recesses of our souls and gives us comfort, release, relief, breakthrough and deliverance.