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Let’s focus now on the things still on your list which have not been cleared out of your conscience, things with which you’ve never really dealt.
Ask yourself what should be done to make things right. Is there restitution that needs to be made? Perhaps a simple apology will bring resolution. Maybe you owe someone a small sum of money from years back; repayment will erase the guilt. Perhaps you’ve allowed a lie to remain between you and someone, or you’ve held a grudge. Confession and forgiveness will put this to rest.
As you look at those things on your list, it may be that if you don’t mention it, it’ll never come up. Perhaps no one else knows but you, in which case it’s very difficult to convince yourself that there’s any need to do anything about it. But if it’s sitting there on your conscience and you know some restitution needs to be made, please don’t ignore it. It will continue to bother you until you clean it out.
I’d like to share with you an experience of one of my listeners. She has given me permission to tell her story in hopes that it will be helpful to others. I’ll call her “Susan.”
Susan wrote me about an incident in her life where her car, which was in the parking lot at work, had rolled into another car and caused some damage. When she discovered this, instead of trying to track down the owner of the other car, she just drove away without telling anyone. Later when asked about it, she denied that she knew anything about it and, with that lie, the matter had died because no one could prove otherwise.
However, it did not die in her conscience. She knew at the time she was wrong to lie, but like so many of us, the fear of the moment caused her to be dishonest. She then found it necessary to keep covering it up.
She wrote and asked me for advice. Obviously it was on her conscience and she couldn’t get it cleared out. I suggested she find the owner of the car and offer to pay for the damage, and apologize to anyone else who knew about it or to whom she had lied.
This was not easy for her to do, but when she did, it cleared her conscience and gave her a story of victory she could share with others.