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There are few days in our lives that are guilt-free, and far-too-many of our days are filled with guilt. Life under a load of guilt is not the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. Guilt steals our joy, hinders our productivity, interrupts our peace, harms our relationships, and worst of all, makes us self-focused. Think about it—when you’re feeling guilty, you’re thinking about yourself; and I’ve learned that when I think about myself very much, it always leads to discouragement and despair.
Have you lived with guilt so long that it has become your daily companion and you no longer recognize its evil source and the harm that it causes? Little wonder that the enemy of our souls wields this weapon of guilt so broadly and with such effectiveness. He has long since recognized how easily we put up with guilt and how difficult it is for us to dump it. So, if he can keep us guilt-ridden, he keeps us from doing all the good things God planned in advance for us to do, as we read in Ephesians 2:10. He steals our joy, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.
While he may not be able to trip us up with some addiction or impurity or disgraceful public sin, it’s not that difficult to bombard our minds with guilt. Someone looks at us the wrong way and we take on guilt. One failure to jump through someone else’s hoop and we’re guilt-ridden. One memory of past sins and guilt moves in. But we often fail to see it as a tool of Satan because we feel like we deserve to feel guilty!
What is guilt?
Guilt is both a fact and a feeling. It is possible to be guilty without feeling guilty. It is possible to feel guilty without being guilty. And obviously, it is possible to be guilty and feel guilty. No doubt we have all experienced these three conditions.
Being guilty without feeling guilty can be due to ignorance. I may be guilty of breaking a law because I am ignorant of the law.
It is also quite possible to have a hardened heart that feels no guilt even when guilty. Hebrews 3:13 admonishes us not to be “hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” I may drive at an excessive speed even though I know I am breaking the law without feeling a tinge of guilt because I’ve become hardened to breaking that law and it doesn’t make me feel guilty, even though I am.
Feeling guilty even when we are not guilty is a more common struggle for most of us. This false guilt is caused by wrong thinking. We feel guilty because we allow ourselves to think thoughts that tell us it is our fault, whatever “it” is. In this condition, we ignore the facts, we wallow in self-recrimination, and we send ourselves into a downward spiral of despair and discouragement without justification. That’s because this false guilt is a feeling, not a reality.
It has been said that feelings have zero I.Q. That means they’re not smart, and in dealing with my own feelings, I have found this to frequently be the case. My feelings can mislead me because they are often not based on reality. But feelings can be very strong and convincing, whether accurate or not.
It is not God’s will for us to live in guilt. Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free; stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Living with guilt is living with a yoke of slavery. It is allowing those feelings of guilt to choke the very life out of you. And Jesus came to set you free from this yoke.
It’s time we start refusing to submit to the yoke of guilt. But, you’re thinking, that is easier said than done. Of course, it’s easier said than done! What isn’t? But that’s no excuse for not doing it! It is possible to learn to live without guilt! We have power to do it because we have God’s Spirit in us to empower us, providing of course, we have been born again into God’s family.
Dealing with True Guilt
True guilt is feeling guilty because you are guilty. That is what we feel when God is convicting us of some area in our lives that needs to be changed, and we are resisting that change.
Harboring true guilt for any length of time will cause you great harm. It took King David way too long to repent of his great sin with Bathsheba. In Psalm 38 he describes the pain of true guilt. David’s physical health was dramatically affected. Literal physical ailments and conditions were the result of this true guilt that David experienced. And of course, he was plagued with emotional and mental pain, too.
I wonder how many of our physical problems are caused by true guilt—by a reluctance to repent and turn away from sin? It is often the cause of depression and despair. David said, “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.”
True guilt is too heavy for us, too. Whether you harbor some huge guilt like David’s or just keep refusing to face the “little stuff” in your life that needs to be cleaned up, that true guilt will eventually take its toll on you and cause mental, emotional and physical suffering.
King David describes the great relief that comes when true guilt is eliminated by confession and forgiveness:
Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit. . . I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin (Psalm 32:1 – 5).
God will keep his hand heavy on you and me when there is true guilt that needs to be confessed and forgiven. Not to be cruel to us, but to restore our fellowship with him and heal us.
Dealing with False Guilt
False guilt is what we put on ourselves when we keep remembering what God has forgiven and forgotten! False guilt is what we feel when someone appears to be disappointed in us. False guilt comes on us when we have to say “no.” False guilt is often a result of trying to please people. False guilt comes when we live with unrealistic expectations of ourselves, and when we allow others to dictate what and who we should be.
We must learn to discern the difference between true and false guilt. When you start feeling guilty, stop and ask yourself: Is this true or false guilt? Have I done something which I can specifically identify for which I deserve blame? Or is this just that nebulous feeling of guilt I seem to get whenever I feel someone is unhappy with me, or I can’t be superwoman, or it’s something totally beyond my control?
One of the first signs that you are dealing with false guilt is that you just can’t say exactly why you feel guilty. When you cannot pinpoint a specific reason for your guilt, it is highly likely you’re dealing with false guilt.
Perhaps the false guilt we suffer from the most is guilt over our past. We all tend to go back and remember the sins of the past, and even though they are forgiven and God remembers them no longer, we don’t seem to be able to purge our memory.
One night I was on my way home and my foot got heavy on the gas pedal. I was going 45 in a 30 mile zone, near my home, and so, two doors from my own home, I got stopped for speeding and the nice officer wrote me a ticket.
As he handed it to me, he said that because I had a clean record, I could pay a $50 fine, and the speeding ticket would not show up on my record at all. He said, “There will be no record anywhere of this offense; it will be as though it never happened.”
That’s what God does for us, but we don’t have to pay $50. By simple faith and confession, he blots out our transgressions, and he keeps no record of them. If you looked on his books, it wouldn’t be there. Oh, how we need to understand this beautiful truth and learn to let go of the guilt of forgiven sin, remembering there is therefore now no more condemnation for us.
Do you know what girlish guilts are? Usually, the first response to a girlish guilt is: “Oh, I’m so sorry!” Here are some examples of what I call “girlish guilts”:
- A coworker says that while you were on vacation last week, the place fell apart and she had to work late every night. You feel guilty for taking a vacation.
- Your child says she got in trouble because she left her homework at home, trying to shift the blame to you for not reminding her to take her homework. You feel like you’re a bad mom, and you feel guilty.
- Your sister says she tried to reach you three times yesterday and kept getting your voice mail. She didn’t leave a message but still seems irritated that you were not there for her when she needed you. You feel like you’ve failed your sister and you feel guilty.
- Your boss asks you when you’re going to complete a job, but it is not your assignment. And when you try to explain, he/she just gives you that look, and you feel guilty.
- You promised to help at church and then you came down with a bad cold the night before. The tone in your friend’s voice was anything but sympathetic when you called to say you couldn’t make it, and you feel very guilty.
Are you getting the gist of these girlish guilts? These are not major issues of guilt, but just an attitude that women often carry which says, “If I’m accused, I must be guilty.”
Do you need to break your bad habit of apologizing for things for which you are not guilty and finding more appropriate responses than “I’m sorry”? Remember, you can empathize—put yourself in someone else’s shoes—without apologizing.
Remember, Romans 8:1 tells us, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” so if God is not condemning you, you have no right to let anyone else condemn you, not even yourself. I would urge you to memorize Romans 8:1 and Isaiah 43:25 as well where God says: “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”
I pray that you will take the steps necessary to live free from guilt. God doesn’t send us on guilt trips. He wants to relieve you of all that guilt you’ve been carrying. So, let him do that for you.