Bill Kinnon over at achievable ends started a meme called The People Formerly Known As The Congregation.

Various bloggers have contributed.
I don’t know why the one below; The Person Formerly Known As Your Leader has buffeted me on a level that hurts where I resist hurt.
Darryl Dash at Dashouse has been looking at repentance.
His first post was A.W. Tozer (a writer I discovered in high school who had a profound effect on my spiritual development)
It’s one of Tozer’s pieces on conviction (a first step in repentance).

I don’t know what a theologian would say, I believe God the Holy Spirit is the only one that can convict. His love is fiercely soft and strong; tugging at my need to cling to my rights. 
No intellectual persuasion, no knowledge, no person can do what the Holy Spirit fiercely yearns to do in me and for me, to bring me into right standing with God, so I may be pruned to serve and be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

I’ve been thinking about the Tozer piece.
Conviction hurts, it’s a wooing, a breaking.
Tozer looks at Lady Julian of Norwich and her prayer for three things.
Lately I’ve been praying, Lord God, I do not want to pursue lies, please bring Truth.  
I don’t know where that prayer is coming from, it’s deep calling to deep. I’ve been puzzled and I’ve resisted…but He must, He compels, He must.

The post hits where that prayer was seeded and springs from, and toughness turns to  mourning, the glimpse God of the Universe so willing bend to hear His beloved child silences my foolish unruliness. 

                     The Person Formerly Known As Your Leader 

Psalm 51 - The Message 1 - 12: 16,17 

Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
   Scrub away my guilt,
      soak out my sins in your laundry.
   I know how bad I’ve been;
      my sins are staring me down.

You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen
      it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
   You have all the facts before you;
      whatever you decide about me is fair.
   I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,
      in the wrong since before I was born.
   What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
      Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life. 

   Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,  
      scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.
   Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
      set these once-broken bones to dancing.
   Don’t look too close for blemishes,
      give me a clean bill of health.
   God, make a fresh start in me,
      shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
     Don’t throw me out with the trash,
      or fail to breathe holiness in me.

Going through the motions doesn’t please you,
      a flawless performance is nothing to you.
   I learned God-worship
      when my pride was shattered.
   Heart-shattered lives ready for love
      don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.