MERE REPENTANCE

This is C S Lewis explaining in a BBC radio broadcast during the Second World War what it means to repent. Remember, this broadcast was for the general British public. He set out to explain Christianity. All these radio broadcasts were later transcribed, redacted and made into the book, Mere Christianity.
This is only part of what he said. I heartily recommend reading the whole book if you have never done so.

"Now what was the sort of 'hole' man had got himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track & getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of our 'hole'. This process of surrender—this movement full speed astern—is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit & self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent.

C S Lewis

Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation & a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back & which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen. Very well, then, we must go through with it. But the same badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it. Can we do it if God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little of His reasoning powers & that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us & that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love & reason because God loves & reasons & holds our hand while we do it. "