This process of surrender--this movement full speed astern--is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. [...] It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years.

Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back [...] it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like.

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 and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another.

You and I can go through this process only if God does it in us [...]

Mere Christianity -- C. S. Lewis