Guilt makes up such a great part of our lives. I don't know about men, but women tend to worry about what they do.
Yesterday I was sitting in the company of some mothers, some with little children, and I noticed how guilty some of them feel. Okay, maybe it was just two of them. One felt guilty because she doesn't give her children enough opportunity to paint pictures. The other because she fed her child when he was tired and then he got sick.
We feel guilty so easily. We feel guilty about say, things we don't do, that we might feel just as guilty about doing. If mother one did let her kids paint pictures a lot, she might feel guilty about 'indulging' them. Mother Two might possibly have felt guilty if she didn't feed her child because she might have felt she was just avoiding a difficult task. And children have to eat!
I feel a bit guilty about going to study at a great university. I don't know how I would have felt had I not gone. Maybe guilty that I am not using my opportunity, that I am not being a good steward of my opportunity. Maybe guilty that I am taking a low-skill job from someone who never had the chance to study.
When I think about this I still feel bad about my decision. I don't know who to listen to. I don't know whether to listen to my guilt-ridden concsience or the mature believers around me who tell me to 'walk and not stand' and not to be silly, and that I should take the chance to get an Education, because not many people do.
But this post is not about me. It's about guilt.
How biblical is guilt anyway? Guilt about sin, yes. But guilt about painting pictures and going to study?
Can anyone out there give me an answer?
I'll go pray about it.
I am so tired about feeling guilty about decisions and second-guessing myself.
I even have second thoughts about this post. Why, I don't know. I didn't lie. I'm not plagiarising.
I don't want to delete this post and not publish it. Aghhh, this is so paralyzing.
Edit: I prayed about it. Now I can post it. :)
Ok, well first off there is a difference between perceived guilt and actual guilt.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, there is also such a thing as an over active conscience.
Paul spoke about people who are the "weaker" brothers. Those people are people with a more sensitive conscience about certain things.
A conscience can be trained, retrained, seared, sensitised, desensitised, etc. The conscience is flawed, and a lot of guilt comes from the conscience. And I think I might have had something to add, but I forgot.
Thanks for the comment! Can you give me the Scripture references?
ReplyDeleteI know the conscience is flawed. That's quite a relief, really.
Prayer... that's the thing...