Feeling Guilty?

Guilt can be one of the most gripping feelings.  It is usually a very personal thing that is felt deep within.  Like many things in life, guilt can either be a strong prompter of change or a great force for stagnation.  As some jokingly say, “Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving!”

Guilt is a normal feeling when we have done something wrong.  It is a healthy mechanism for living and being responsible.  However, if we continue to be weighed down by guilt and guilty feelings, it can be unhealthy.

I can think of a number of times when I felt guilty for something going on around me either at home, at church, or in the world.  Such feelings were experienced as a very heavy burden and it wasn’t until closer examination that I realized in some cases I was not responsible for what was going on (perhaps you have experienced someone trying to lay a guilt trip on you – parents are good at that with kids and vice versa).

There can be a big difference between “feeling guilty” and being guilty.  It seems to me that when guilty feelings arise, we would do well to sit down in prayer and/or with another person to really examine what is going on.  And if we discover it is simply a matter of “feeling guilty” when we in fact, are not guilty, then we need merely to let it go.  It’s what a seminary professor of mine described as “the guilt trip trap.”  But if we are, indeed, guilty for some wrong, then we stand in need of grace and forgiveness.

Unresolved guilt leads to despair - whereas forgiveness leads to hope.  Guilt is only a provisional assessment of who we are and can best be dealt with when we realize that it is not a final assessment of who we are.  The beauty of the gospel is that God through Christ stands ready to accept and forgive us rather than leaving us to the morbidity of brooding despair.  God loves us more than we dare imagine and that is good news, indeed!

“I, I am the one who blots out your transgressions 
for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” 
- Isaiah 43:25

Friends, we are God’s own and as such a community of grace.

You are loved,

Rev. Dr. David D. Young
Senior Minister

This piece originally appeared in The Wave on October 26, 2022