A comfortable old shoe

Guilt has always come easy to me. I don’t know if it began when I took too much to heart my mother’s puppy dog eyes as they looked in my direction after some hurt or pain I had inflicted on her. Perhaps, it took up residence as a result of my bedtime ritual with dad to absolve my conscience by sharing all my “naughty stories,” from the day. And so it was I grew up to think this world was a place of earned happiness. There wasn’t any place for the luxury of a broken window.

Whatever the origins, all my life, guilt has felt safer than grace. It was like a comfortable old shoe, my familiar ground. My accuser (Revelation 12:10) was my own self-talk, my own conditioning. Satan (the external enemy) was just in for the piggy-back ride. What really anchored it for me was my internal voice.

The Lord will often speak to us through the people we rub shoulders with in our everyday working world. A lady called Lisa once looked me straight in the eye, “I’ve had the hardest 10 years of my life; it is time to lay the burden down.” Those words went right into my own heart.

A new song

My pastor/counsellor was a great mentor. I remember a marvellous breakthrough one day in John’s office. He asked me to swap chairs. I suddenly found myself in the chair opposite. John had me imagine Jesus and I were physically facing each other. He then asked me to consider the words Jesus would to say to me.

Without hesitation I said, "I delight in you."

My response was immediate and the tears broke like a burst dam wall.

All at once, I was no longer alone. He was there, and it was the only message He had for me.

My mind goes to the anxious Englishman who became convinced God had arrived in judgment and, so familiar with a sense of his own guilt and shame, hastily took up self-flagellation to avoid the bubonic plague. I too would regularly beat up on myself because in my natural state I am such a resistor of the grace of God! But I had to ask the question — has condemning myself ever made me a better person? No it hasn’t! In fact, self-condemnation only ever entrenches the problem. Engaging in post-mortems infects past and future. There’s a failure to embrace Shakespeare’s sage words, What is past is prologue! (The Tempest), and an inability to leave one’s future to the absolute goodness of Father God.

The Lord has made ample provision for the besetting problem of the emotional and spiritual chains of real guilt or false guilt.

We are — all of us — naked at the welcoming Cross! The Lord has made ample provision for the besetting problem of the emotional and spiritual chains of real guilt or false guilt. It’s been said God’s love is as lavish as a child’s spread of peanut butter on their toast. The fatted calf is always in the pot and we come to Him with seven simple words, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

We bring Him everything we are feeling, every convicting thought, and agree with Him it has all been taken care of at the Cross. 1 John 1:9 declares He is faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When He cried out, “It is Finished,” He meant it. He has nothing to hold over me! The Lord is on my side (Psalm 118:6), not on my case – and I can “wear forgiveness like a crown” (Don Moen).

David’s prayer at the end of Psalm 142 is a tremendous encouragement for anyone under a guilt burden: “Bring my soul out of prison, That I may praise Your name; The righteous shall surround me (strong christian fellowship is a great blessing to the guilt-laden), For You shall deal bountifully with me.” The last line literally translated is “You shall deal fully with me.” There is nothing our saving God has not thought of, or provided for.

Praise His Name! What a song!