That Dirty Feeling

When I was younger, I was given a lot of lists. Top 10 Ways Satan Tempts You. How to Make Your Christian Friendships Last, How to be an Accountability Partner, Why You Should Not Date if You are a Christian…

The thing is, sometimes this advice was far from biblical. I think these speakers and books were trying to put God’s will in a box. (Oh, wait….I cannot even begin to tell you how many talks I heard on The Ten Ways to Know God’s Will!) Somehow, I was left with two impressions: 1) There are a lot of bad things out there that I am probably doing or could do, and 2) I need to be on God’s side. Each are a little true, but I have to admit, I kind of live in a lot of fear. It’s gotten better, I think. In the last five years God has been teaching me a lot about grace and sin.

Then again, it took me a bit of time not to feel guilty that my fiance thinks I’m beautiful. I mean, all my life, I was taught that attitudes like that lead to a one way track of sin. And, when I read that sentence there it all seems a bit ridiculous. Maybe it does to you also. But, give it some thought and there’s probably a lot of riduculous things we feel gulity about.

The fact of the matter is that there are people (both Christians and not) who appear to not feel any guilt for things that they probably should feel guilt about. And, then there are people (and I think a lot more Christians qualify under this category, but I could be wrong) who feel guilty about things that they shouldn’t feel guilty about. Yet, somehow, a lot of Christians teach the guilty feelings are the result of the Holy Spirit working in our lives.

I don’t want to belittle the Holy Spirit in this post or pretend that God does not at times make us aware of our sins. But, what I want to talk about today is just how dirty guilt can become in the Christian community.

There is not enough time for me to talk about the various thoughts I have had lately on the nature of sin (although, I do hope to talk about it more in future blogs….stay tuned!!), so I fear this post may be incomplete.

Since I was a child, there were so many things that were said to be sinful that really weren’t. Or perhaps they were things that could be sinful, given the right attitude, but, at the same time, given the right attitude, they could be good things. I can almost laugh at some of them: music, kissing, dancing, drinking. But, there are other things that are a bit more gut-renching. Let’s say someone in the Church tells you that you focus on loving people too much and need to focus on your relationship with God. It’s very possible that someone could be doing that and it is right to reflect at all times how our discipleship is going. But, it is also very possible that in loving people, we are not only following the command of God, but participating in communion with God in a way that could be lacking if one does not ‘love their neighbour.’ Perhaps that’s a lame example, but I almost fear getting too personal. I am sure if we just listed what makes us feel guilty, we could come up with quite a list. And guilt is certainly such a personal thing…I think it steers so many of our decisions and responses.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve often traded grace and mercy for guilt so often, walking away from God under the guise of following Christian leadership…focusing on myself and my guilt in a way that is anything but godly.

I was talking to my sister about Lent this week and informed her that Sunday was a feast day and she could break from her fast. She told me that was dumb. I remember thinking that too when I began practicing Lent. I wanted to feel the pain…somehow understand the weight of my sins. But, I explained to her that every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection. Easter is continually occurring. We are over and over raised to new life. We were redeemed and are redeemed and are being redeemed. May we take the time to remember Sunday during this Lenten season. May we look back at our sin, but not live in guilty; looking forward to Easter and He who redeemed us from it all, allowing us to be born again.