Have you ever tried to picture in your mind, geographically speaking, how far distant East is from West? It’s a mystery isn’t it? A distance immeasurable! You’re asking why would someone even think of this when talking about guilt? We’ll get there.
I’d like to believe we’ve all had those silly moments where we let emotions rule us, and we let good reasoning escape us as we do or say something we later regret. Whether it be one of those we call ‘guilty pleasures’, like taking in too much chocolate after dinner or something as serious as having swindled your way into ownership of a degree, guilt is something we get to deal with at some point. And it’s a feeling that has great potential to cause one to lose sleep.
If you’ve been tormented by feelings of guilt, I’m sure you have landed on this article hoping to find some solution to this issue. As it is culture nowadays, the internet is filled with ‘quick fix’ solutions, often presented to us in a number of steps that we are asked to follow for us to receive just the results we desire. They have their benefits, but when it comes to dealing with guilt, here’s a different perspective we’d like to share today and hope that this will help you gain total freedom from feeling guilty.
Rather than seeking within yourself, asking questions, or doing some positive actions, hoping that these will lift your guilt away, we’d like you to look to a God who was prepared, and still is, to do it all to ensure that no one, not me, not you, have to endure the torture of living with feelings of guilt or shame. This is not something you can resolve by your own reasoning and good works. The world has done well judging us and pointing fingers at us for whatever wrong we have done but God doesn’t look at us the way the world does, neither in the way we sometimes view ourselves.
If there are any steps, they will be:
- Acknowledge that you did something you shouldn’t have.
- If there are people you need to make right with, don’t hesitate to do so.
- Resolve to not repeat that same mistake.
If these are done with sincerity in the heart, you can be assured that it’s possible to have peace and not have to go through life carrying burdens of guilt. These are not some sort of ‘quick fix’, trusting that you can have peace is not an attempt to try to suggest that the past will be erased. Things may have happened, but you don’t have to live the rest of your life bound by the destabilizing feeling of guilt. Coming back to the East and West scenario I painted earlier, this is a promise that God gives to everyone who is willing to let go of the ways they are not proud of and turn to Him for a life with meaning and purpose. “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12.
If God is willing to love you regardless of whatever crime you committed, why let yourself carry loads which you can do away with? If the question “how can I stop feeling guilty?” is one that you’ve been asking yourself, we trust that this article has set you on the path to finding peace again. If you’d like to know more about God and how He can help you with things you are grappling with in your life, click on the banner below.