The Christian Working Woman - Dealing with Guilt

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 gui