...

"Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways" ~ Prov 20:30

What does it mean to change one's way?

Pain can be such a stubborn teacher. Pain, in its raw form, does not just wound, it exposes. It forces us to pause, reflect, and often, to choose a new path. 

Today I came across something that made me pause: the difference between two Greek words often linked to repentance: metamelomai and metanoia.

Metamelomai is when we feel regret. You know that ache after you’ve done something wrong, the guilt that makes you swear “never again”? Yet somehow, even with all that regret, we still find ourselves repeating the same action. That is metamelomai. Painful, yes, but shallow.

Metanoia on the other hand is deeper. It goes past regret into transformation. It is not just feeling sorry, it is a genuine change of heart and mind, a turning away from the old and moving toward something new.

Now, when Proverbs says pain makes us change our ways, it is pointing us past metamelomai into metanoia. Pain might awaken regret, but regret alone does not heal us. True change comes when pain pushes us deeper, into a genuine resolve that transforms our thinking and reorders our lives.

Dearest reader, so yes, painful experiences may break us, but their true power is found when they lead us into metanoia, not just feeling sorry.

@favvy_Okwans🖤.