Regarding beliefs about causality, I came to the conclusion a long time ago that there is a wide confusion about what G'd blesses, what He allows, and what He intervenes to stop. "He hasn't stopped my [insert behavior here], so I guess He must want me to do it."

My experience is that what He wants us to do, when we do it, He blesses outrageously and abundantly in ways we could not have foreseen or expected. He stops us when it's the only way to break through our thick, hard layer of denial such that we have stopped listening to Him entirely. In between those two approaches, He calls us to allow His transforming grace to carry us toward His vision for us. That doesn't mean He approves, or that He is punitive-- it means He lovingly stays close to invite us to think to pray, to reconsider.

There's also a lot of confusion around the term "repentance." To repent simply means, in the original language, to turn around. I think of it more as an "Ah-Hah!" moment than as an occasion for breast-beating or self-castigation: "I wanted to go THERE but instead I got myself HERE! I gotta go back to my wrong turn-- or cut through this forest to get back on my way!"

YMMV.

~S~