From the Pulpit: Resolution - Guilt

So … how are those resolutions going? Are they already a bust? Did you even get them started? Did you not even try to make any? Do you think self-improvement is pointless? Do those questions even feel like too much?

Do you feel guilty about any of that?  

First, I want to say this: Let it be known that I am NOT a counselor or psychiatrist. If you are struggling with overwhelming emotions of guilt or despair, seek the mental health services of a trained professional immediately as well as praying with trusted spiritual advisors. Neuroscience and psychiatry are not enemies of faith or treatments for spiritually “weak” people; they are vocations that God has called gifted individuals into service that might understand our created bodies and so that others might experience healing!

That said, I would like to explore the emotion and purpose of guil 

Guilt comes from a feeling of failure and insufficiency. Now in some relationships guilt might be imposed on you and used as a weapon so that you behave the way someone wants you to behave. Sadly, this happens in churches all too often.

That is wrong. This is bad. That is unloving and unfair. However, even if no one else or nothing else imposes guilt on you, the emotion will still arise in you at some point. Because a person who cares for others and is even moderately self-aware will understand that they have failed others and themselves at some point in their lives. If you are a healthy self-critical human being, you will experience some level of regret over these failures otherwise known as GUILT.

Perhaps you feel guilty based on failures to take care of yourself. Circle any that might apply to you: You work too much. You eat too much. You drink too much. You rush too much. You stress too much. You laugh too little. Rest too little. Live too little. Converse too little. Love too little. 

A certain level of guilt may arise when you read one or more of those statements. I know certainly a few of those of those apply me! Yes, we can feel guilty about the things we do that fail ourselves. 

Maybe your guilt does not lie in that which you have not done for yourself but in that which you’ve done to someone else. Again, circle any that might apply to you: You spoke too harshly. You were too quick to judge. Too slow to forgive. Ignored someone in need. Excluded someone. Cheated someone. Hurt someone. Feared someone. Hated someone.

At least one of these will apply to each of us and whichever one applies to us it will fill us with guilt. We fail ourselves. We fail each other. We make well-intentioned resolutions only to have our resolve fail too! We feel guilty. But guilt doesn’t get to have the last word.

Hear the words of Jesus for you, “Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28). Circle that! Underline it! Cut it out and put it on the bathroom mirror … be resolved to let go of those burdens this week knowing that you are not alone as you struggle. God is with you. God’s love is for you.

Make the resolution this week to forgive yourself for those things that you haven’t done. Be resolved to forgive yourself for things you regret and that eat at your conscience. Be resolved to use your guilt as a tool that drives you forward. And be resolved to let the love of God lead you to a life of transformed and faithful living!

(Next: What happens when fear affects our resolve and what can be done about it?)