Faith and Life: Dealing with Guilt

Part of the Christian life involves our recognition that God outlines certain things in how we live that are good and beneficial for us, as well as things which serve Him and demonstrate love for Him and love for our neighbor.  Alongside that, we also recognize that there are many times where we fail to do what He says, or even find ourselves not wanting to do them.  In general, it seems that this situation leaves many dealing with a great deal of guilt.

Dealing with guilt in our lives involves two different things in our relationship with God and others.  First, it means that we have to admit (or the "churchy" word we use is confess) that we simply cannot do everything God says and commands and desires, and even, at times, to admit that we don't want to.  (What, love a terrorist as myself?  That's just insane!  But that's what God says.)  Part of dealing with the guilt is to realize what it is that we are feeling guilty about.  So it's a great benefit to us to actually take a little time to reflect and inwardly discover the things that we actually feel guilty about.

(On a side note, another part of this point in the previous paragraph is to know what God says enough to know what we should feel guilty about and what not.  I've heard a lot of people say that God requires things which the Bible does not say, or they deny that God says certain things which are clearly laid out in the Bible.  So an additional point to the previous paragraph is to know the Bible and actually discover what we should feel guilty about in relation to God.)

The second part of dealing with this guilt is to come to an admission to ourselves.  We're not God!  We cannot do everything perfectly.  God did not make us all knowing, or give us such powers as to be able to do everything.  Instead, there are times where we need to admit our limitations.  I know, it's easy to beat ourselves up over something that we really couldn't do anything about, but that is to take the guilt of another onto ourselves, and only Jesus could do that in any kind of meaningful way.

God gave the great gift of forgiveness to help us deal with guilt.  This is also why having a person to go to and confess your guilt and feelings of guilt is such a great thing.  (Incidentally, this is really what a pastor is for!!!)  Not only do we better understand what we are feeling guilty about, but we hear that, in Jesus, God has forgiven that guilt and dealt with it.  It may not instantly change how we feel, but it is God's provided means for taking that burden off of our shoulders and putting it onto the shoulders that have done something about it.