Jesus is our confidence because he reveals truth from falsehood, right from wrong, and reality from appearance, so that we may rely on him for our every need of body, soul, and mind.
The absence of a feeling is not the absence of Christ, but as emotional, rational, and spiritual beings, we cannot say that the presence of Christ necessitates the absence of emotion.
When we explain away God’s Word, we jettison the reality of our ominous diagnosis in the “Thou shall/shall nots” of the law, and with it the sweet cure in the, “This is My body/blood” of the Gospel.
I don’t mean simply that I “loved the darkness rather than the light because my deeds were evil,” as Jesus says (John 3:19). While that is true, there was deeper magic at work. I loved the darkness because I feared all the good things in the light.
As with so many things, regret can begin as something natural, even beneficial, as you struggle to recover from a wound in your past. But over time, regret can devolve from a sadness to a sickness.