Living with(out) Guilt

There's a terribly helpless and lost feeling a person gets when they cease to feel guilt after having lived with it for a lifetime. Granted, guilt is never pleasant, but it becomes familiar and expected, so when it goes away, it's more than a bit frightening.

I'm not sure whether I was responsible for my endlessly guilty conscience or if my Fundy background was. Probably a good mix of both. But I'm beginning to wonder if the guilt mentality that pervades the Fundy church isn't doing them more of a disservice than they realize. There's a good reason for me to say this.

I believe we're given a conscience for a reason. It's God's first way of directing us toward right and away from wrong. What constitutes right or wrong isn't an issue I want to explore right now. Suffice it to say that, with the exception of a very few, the vast majority of humans are born with an internal sense that certain behaviors are right or wrong, and this sense does not merely stem from societal rules and influences. There's something in us apart from the societal expectations we're taught, and that something feels shame when we do something cruel or selfish or unkind or dishonest. Even if society never finds out about it, we still are aware that we have fallen short of some standard that lies within us. This is what we call the conscience.

It's because man violates this conscience so frequently that, I believe, God had to provide us with a more tangible set of rules and guidelines for how we are expected to conduct ourselves in this life. Without wishing to step on the toes of those who don't agree, I embrace the Christian belief that this is contained in the Bible.

But here's the deal. As a Christian (or a Christ follower), I've seen how the guidelines given in the Bible are turned into a rod that is used to beat people into submission. I've seen it done to others, I've allowed others to do it to me, and worst of all, I've done it to myself. And it is in doing this that Christians do Jesus a true disservice.

If you take the time to study the Bible, particularly the New Testament, you gradually come to realize that one of the primary cornerstones of Christianity is the eradication of guilt and the removal of the guilt mentality. And don't go any further with that than what I'm actually saying, all you Fundy nuts who are determined to misunderstand me. LOL. :) I'm not saying that we won't continue to feel conviction over genuine wrongdoing, but once we've taken that to God and asked for forgiveness, the guilty feelings are supposed to go away and we shouldn't feel them again until God initiates conviction for something else we do wrong. In fact, in my experience, conviction from God is less about me being a worm and more about me being inspired and driven toward transformation and change. Big difference. Trust me. Guilt leaves you feeling hopeless and worthless; conviction leaves you feeling as though true change can happen and you can be free.

Anyway, back to my point... I don't believe Jesus ever intended people to walk around feeling guilty all the time and constantly conducting "sin hunts" in their souls ("witch hunts," as my old leader used to call them). That's not to say He doesn't want us to be vigilant. The Bible makes it clear that we should be so that we aren't led astray or deceived. And believe me, sin will deceive you. Been there. Done that. Have the t-shirt. But we're not supposed to be staring ourselves down with a microscope trying to find sin in everything we do. I used to do this, and I watched several good friends do this, and if anything, it crippled us as Christ followers.

Fast forward a couple years, a lot of mistakes, and a whole lot of living and learning. As I was coming out of the Fundy church, I began to see how crippling my constant sense of guilt was. Now, I'm seeing yet another way this old guilt mentality has done me damage: I've ceased to feel guilt over things I know I should feel guilt about.

I can't tell you how terrifying that is for me. It's like I abused the guilt "medication" for so many years that I built up a tolerance to it and became immune. It doesn't work anymore. (Don't worry; I still have a conscience.) But seriously, there are a couple of things in my life that I know I should feel some sort of guilt about, but I don't. I suppose I do on some level, but it's more something I can avoid than something that stalks me and haunts me and plagues me. So instead of having this terrible sense of shame over these actions and behaviors to make me so miserable I change my ways, I'm left with this detached belief that what I'm doing isn't right, but it sure doesn't feel wrong. And that isn't doing anything toward bringing about a difference in my choices and actions.

It is in this that I have a hard time trusting God. In black and white, I have no excuse to offer for myself. Whether it feels wrong or not, the Bible says it is. And unlike a lot of folks these days, I can't just cut away the parts of the Bible I don't like or don't agree with or don't want to pay attention to. For me, embracing the Bible is an all-or-nothing proposition. I guess that's partially because I can't convince myself that truth is subjective and that I can shape it and form it according to whatever ideas happen to appeal to me at any given moment. I just believe that kind of mentality ignores the nature of truth itself. So here I am, and I have no excuse to offer God that will hold water. And if I could just feel some kind of guilt about this, even a fraction of the horrible guilt I used to live with, I could stop. But I don't. I just can't see the "wrongness" outside a clinical environment. In my real world where the colors and lights and feelings are, where life is happening, the clinical "truth" just doesn't make much sense.

Can I trust God to bring me out of this? Can I trust that He's got a better system for producing the kind of behavior He says He approves of than merely beating us to a bloody pulp with our indiscretions? Is it possible that He has to cut away that guilty mindset forever in order to produce the kind of conviction that will result in true transformation?

I don't know. I don't want to take advantage of His grace and goodness. I don't want to harden my heart toward Him. And so I'm afraid out here in the big, wide world where the rules are different and my guilt gauge is broken. I'm afraid I'll go too far. I'm afraid He'll never bring me home. I afraid to live without guilt, especially when I know I should feel it.