“The word ‘repentance’ is a fabricated word from the Latin word, penance, and to give religion more mileage the English word became re-penance! This is not what the Greek word means at all!
The word, metanoia, comes from meta, meaning together with, and nous, mind; thus, together with God’s mind. This word suggests a radical mind shift; it is to realise God’s thoughts towards us.” – The Mirror Bible Commentary.
In short, repentance in Greek means – a change of mind.
Repentance does not necessitate we have to be in tears:
* We may repent while crying or…
* We may repent while calmly listening to a sermon.
* We may even repent while laughing (Many have done that).
Think about it, remorse does not necessarily guarantees repentance.
* Judas cried.
* Cain felt great remorse for his sin but did not find the gift of repentance.
You see, the real issue is not emotion but decision. Did we change our mind to think like God thinks about a situation?
While God can take advantage of a broken heart or a sick body to lead a person to repentance; the idea of a father (or our Heavenly Father) intentionally inflicting physical pain or causing his children to have emotional breakdown, so to solicit repentance is in my perception, a sick and sadistic religious concept.