When Guilt Bites

Do you often unexpectedly remember things you said or did in the past that make you want to smack yourself or cringe?

It seems like an everyday thing for me. One moment I’ll be whistling a tune (in my mind of course), and the next I’ll have stubbed my metaphorical toe on something that catches me completely off guard. It could be an object, it could be a word (for me it’s words more often than not), or a person's name – something that triggers your inner time machine and send you back to a moment you saw that object or heard that one word – and all those stored feelings come tumbling back out of the cabinet.

It’s not so easy to forget things. Actually, scratch that. It’s impossible to completely forget things. We’ll always one moment think we’ve moved on from the past, only to find ourselves reliving it the next – usually for what seems to us the dumbest reasons. Remembering is just too easy.

I’d wonder if it just means we aren’t supposed to forget. Then I’d wonder what it is I have to do to get rid of the pain, and only frustrate myself thinking of solutions. I don’t think I could go around and talk things out with every person or group of people I’ve ever found myself at odds with or felt stupid around. Chances are with some it wouldn’t do much good anyway.

So what do we do with all this guilt?

It’s true that sometimes being honest with ourselves or putting things into words shows us we were really embarrassed for nothing. Even if our actions were “not kosher” or “uncool” in the eyes of some, our intentions were what mattered, and if they were pure there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

However it’s the times we know we were actually in the wrong that really bite. When the image of the people we imagined ourselves to be shatters to reveal replays of ugly behavior we’ve displayed, the spirit quickly sinks 20,000 leagues under. That’s when we spit out words like “just kill me” or “let me die”, or simply use our own skulls as punching bags.

I’m not gonna tell you to throw the guilt away because you’re only imagining you were in the wrong. Some like to repaint their stories and make themselves out to be the innocent victims every time. I’ve done it before – but I always found that when I was truly honest with myself, I couldn’t exempt myself from guiltiness entirely if at all.

A lie doesn’t really free you – it blinds your eyes. And while a blindfolded man may be as free as one with sight, his navigational abilities are more limited. Glossing over the details and reinterpreting the situation in your favor will only have you blundering around in the dark. And you will feel taller than you actually are, setting you up for a bigger fall when your stilts get tangled.

Where do you go then? What do we do when face-to-face with the grim truth?

My first feeling is that I deserve punishment. I have no right to live. The world would be better off without me.

Then I remember Who I’m really accountable to. I remember He loves me even if the entire human race (including me) would brand me a traitor and a villain and demand I pay. He paid that price for me, and has already forgiven everything. He’s had a plan for me since before my life even began. Where some may see a piece of living trash, He sees a beloved child. I’ll probably make more mistakes in the future and get lost in more woods, but I know He’ll guide me back home every time.

All the scornful eyes, all the judgment and branding cast on you – it will only backfire on its owners. Because those who can’t forgive won’t be forgiven.

To have someone who loves you that much, someone whose opinion is the only one that matters, who will never give up on you, who will always be there for you, who can never be separated from you even by death, who will forgive you no matter how terrible you think you are – that to me is the cure for guilt,

Because every time I remember Jesus Christ, I feel my regret and guilt washed away.

Song of the Heart

Why does the tune of the heart change so uncontrollably?

One moment a lullaby, the next moment a roar,

One moment a dirge, the next moment a jig,

Now a hymn, now an outcry, now a laugh, now a growl.

Why, O Heart, do you confuse me so?

God, fill me with love, so it will shine through no matter the tune.

When the things I hold dear begin to crumble, empower me to stay true,

And to embody love every moment, even if it would disappear from the world around me.

The Trunk, the Limb, and the Branches

Once upon a time there was a tree from which grew a single limb. The trunk and the limb loved each other greatly, and together shared the happiest existence they could ask for.

Then from the limb grew many smaller branches, who were welcomed joyfully into the family. While the branches were happy for a while, however, soon they grew discontented with being part of the tree, and broke themselves off.

In the dirt below they tried to plant themselves as their own trees, but because they had no roots they could not stay upright. They withered, unable to sustain themselves with enough water and sunlight, and animals came and chewed on them, further damaging them.

At this point many of the broken branches began calling out for help from the tree. So the trunk and the limb immediately determined to get them back. However the limb was too high above the ground to reach them.

Then the trunk came up with a plan, and told the branch what they were going to do, but it was going to be painful. The branch asked if there was any other way, but they both knew the answer, and braced themselves for the operation.

With a tremendous snap, the trunk broke the limb at the base, leaving it only barely attached. A burst of excruciating pain shook the entire tree. However the limb was now able to bend down all the way to the ground, where it could reach all the broken branches.

So all the branches that wished to return were gathered up, and fused with the limb once more, including many other sticks that wished to share their home. Then the trunk pulled the limb back up and healed its broken base, making it strong once again.

Thus the branches, the limb, and the trunk were restored to their former state, sharing blissful togetherness with one another, and they lived happily ever after.

You Are Conquerors

I wouldn’t have chosen it. At the time I felt confused, feeling something was terribly wrong, convinced it was unfair. “Why is this happening to me?” This question constantly plagued my heart, fueling my anger, stoking my frustration, crushing me with despair.

Looking back on it, though, that’s when I wonder –

Would I have been the same person I am today if it never happened?

We all long for Eden. We all desire peace – peace of mind, peace of body, peace of soul. None of us knowingly choose the path of hardship and trial. We all want to be happy, to have everything go our way, to keep what’s precious to us safely guarded. Why wouldn’t we?

Yet if we never new what it was to lack, to feel robbed, to experience pain – could we ever fully appreciate what true Heaven has to offer?

If everything went just how we wanted from start to finish, we would never know struggle – and we would never know just how deep and sweet relief is. If we never had to fight for anything, how could we be satisfied with what we earned? If we never lost anything, how could we fully appreciate what we have? So many things we take for granted, and their value in our minds dwindles. Yet only someone who has lost everything can appreciate the gift of everything, which God has promised his children. Only if we have known what it feels like to be lost and alone can we experience the joy of being found, being loved, belonging.

I think those with the deepest wounds are the ones who will experience Heaven to the fullest, whose joy will be the greatest.

But if you chose the path of hardship I’d think there was something wrong with you. No suffering at the time is ever enjoyable, can ever be appreciated, much less be seen as something to thank God for. It’s never pretty, it’s never fun.

Yet looking back on my own hardships I will always thank God for them. Why? Because thanks to them I won’t have lived all my life surrounded by pillows and fluff, with everything I wanted delivered to me on a silver platter.

Instead I will have become a fighter – a warrior – a conqueror. A person I don’t have to be ashamed of. The person I always wished I could be.

In the future I know I will struggle. I will most certainly go through more times when I want to yell, hit things, and shake my fist at God, asking him why, with all my anger, sadness, and pain poured into my words and actions.

But on the day I cross to the other side, and enter the gates of paradise, I won’t enter as one who always had it easy. I will enter as a winner. And when I look back on the earthly life I lived, with all its struggles and hardships, I will take a deep breath, and say, “Thank you God, for all the suffering I went through, allowing me to take part in Christ’s suffering, that I may follow after him and share in his glory among the ranks of fellow Christian heroes.”

Until the end of our hardships, then, we have to endure.

The suffering is not because we are losing the battle. It is the battle – and in God’s grace we will always make it through.

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life the Lord has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)

What is your biggest reality?

I know of course for reality to be what it is, there can only be one – but everyone has their own perspective of it, our knowledge of it is limited to what we have discovered, disagreements arise from uncertainty about things we thought we knew. On top of this, many perspectives compete to occupy the position of truth in our minds. It can drive us crazy, even make us panic. In the end, we often decide simply to stick with what we know – to believe our biggest reality, the one which in our eyes is the largest, to which all other realities must give precedence – whether we love it, or merely resign to it.

What is your biggest reality?

It could be something as big as a national or religious view, it could be small like the simple things in life we enjoy. It could be a place, a person, a thing. It could be an activity you have devoted your life to, in which you find meaning and validation. It could be whatever makes you happy, or whatever gives you the thrills you seek. It could be a harsh truth that you have come to accept is just part of existence. All examples aside, every individual comes to the conclusion eventually that for them one truth at least outshines all the rest – even the conclusion there is no truth except what you're feeling at any given time.

What do you do with the smaller realities?

You subjugate them to the biggest. If you fail to you are forced to make modifications to your views, or stick to the hope that there is an answer you have just not uncovered yet, which could be the case sometimes, though not always.

What is my biggest reality?

It was a conclusion I had wanted to reach in the past, and did hold to, but still with some doubts and anxieties, even misgivings. The size of my competing realities flickered, like multiple balloons slowly deflating, with one pump switching between them. After many years, however, the conviction that Jesus rose from the dead became the largest, overarching all others.

It was not the first largest though. The first largest was not a positive, but a negative. While many people seemed to be okay with goofing off and enjoying life while ignoring or accepting the fact that death would sooner or later end them, I couldn't swallow that.

Therefore instead of embracing the reality that was directly in front of me, though I was tempted to more than once out of despair, I sought after the echoes of the voice that called out to me from the ancient past. Others had done the same, and undergone astounding changes in their beliefs – but I had always been afraid they were just dumb or had missed something.

Their conclusions, however, made sense to me, and since no one can say with certainty that such a thing is impossible, since we can't disprove God's existence and therefore the possibility of him bringing about a miracle that deviated from the normal conventions of the natural world, I was open to accepting their explanation, to my eyes the only sensible one, of the historical events composing this earth-shattering anomaly. The sources I refer to are various and many, but I think this article sums up the case very well.

So what of the personal feelings?

There are many who want to believe in a compassionate God, but when they read about the acts of judgment the God of the Old Testament was responsible for, such as the conquest of Canaan, they conclude this is not the one they should accept. They then mistakenly assume that all who believe in him are either bloodthirsty monsters or nice people who are just blinded by narrow-minded dogmatism. Not so. While some of the things God commanded in the Old Testament make me uncomfortable, it doesn't shake my faith as a Christian, because my biggest reality is Jesus, who loved sinners like us and gave up his life on our account to restore us to God's grace when we didn't deserve it, and who rose from the dead, showing the world that the grave isn't the end.

Does that mean I ignore the Old Testament, or pretend the parts I don't like aren't really there? No. I simply choose to believe what the writers of the New Testament did – that God knows what he is doing and we as humans aren't meant to know the exact reason for all his choices. Here is what I do know – God never punishes the innocent (see Ezekiel 18). Neither does he break his promises, for better or worse (speaking in our terms). If he has said he will forgive the sinner, he will. If the sinner doesn't want forgiveness, he won't.

I don't have to worry that God's love will disappear from my life if I'm not good enough, because he will only take it away if I reject him. In the case of the Canaanites, it was not so much that God had abandoned them as that they had abandoned God. What had grown intrinsic to them was a deep, incurable wickedness, one which – for all we know – might have become part of their very DNA. How can we know for sure? Only God knows. He is, however, a God I trust. He has earned that from me. Not that God owes me anything, but by his actions he has shown himself to be as trustworthy as he claims.

When you realize Jesus loves you, you know what matters most.

Would reading about the conquest of Canaan open the door to creating a dangerous and violent version of Christianity? Only among those who don't really know Jesus, who haven't heard his words and refuse the path of peace as he did – even though his existence spelled doom and conflict for those who hated him, not by brute power but by humility and truth, and a warning of the coming judgment by God, not by man, for sinners who rejected forgiveness. Anyone who knows Jesus knows that it is the peacemakers who will be called Sons of God, not the violent.

What is your biggest reality? Is it big enough? Only you can answer that.

A prank worth the sacrifice?

Twelve men and more put their lives on the line.

Twelve men and more received violence and torture.

Twelve men and more endured hunger and fatigue.

Twelve men and more shivered behind bars as they sang.

Ten men and more were cruelly killed.

Every last one knew this fate was most likely.

So why would they do this just to play a hoax?

They could have said no. Turned their backs on the cause.

Recanted their belief, gained relief from their pain.

They might have scammed a multitude, led the foolish on by lies,

Perhaps become famous, built an empire on their fictions,

Bowing down to Caesar, dedicating a religion to him,

A palace of their own, daily tea with the Emperor.

Instead they gave up everything, well-being and life itself,

All to proclaim what they claimed to have witnessed –

That a man who'd been killed,

Who had a spear run through his heart,

Who was mummified, sealed in a tomb,

This man was alive again.

How, they said?

By nothing short of what the man had claimed –

That he was God in human form,

That the power of God had resurrected him,

And that every power on earth lay beneath him, even Caesar,

For he had power over Death itself,

And he would one day judge the world for all its crimes,

Which if not sought forgiveness for, and freedom from in Him,

Would bring the offender to condemnation.

Twelve men and more risked their lives for a task,

Twelve men and more gave up everything,

Because to them none of it mattered.

It would be gone when they were gone.

But God's kingdom is forever,

And they believed they would share in Jesus' resurrection,

Themselves becoming forever as he is.

What convinced twelve men and more to think this way?

Could it have been what they claimed was true?

No One is Weak

Strength is praised. Strength is honored. Strength is respected. Strength is loved.

Those who have it are idolized and worshiped. What is it? It could be physical strength, it could be smarts and ingenuity, or a raw determination driving one relentlessly onward in spite of setbacks.

But what of those who have none of these?

They are obviously the losers. The idiots. The flawed and imperfect. Those who didn't make enough of the right choices. Those who just couldn't be winners even when they tried. Those who have no place in the world. Because success belongs only to the best.

Weakness is despised. Weakness is scorned. Weakness is mocked. Weakness is even hated.

Weakness is pushed around, scapegoated, looked down on, shunned. To some, it's the biggest crime there ever was. No one wants it around. No one wants to be it either. But there it is, all around us and within us.

The world presents to us this twisted choice – force yourself above your circumstances, or just end your life. Because those without the will to press on deserve death, I suppose.

But there is another choice.

Either you can join the throngs in their rat race for power and control – or you can enter the narrow path of love and peace.

The beast inside us screams for justice. It can't take humiliation, it can't take being falsely accused, or misjudged. Above all, it can't admit its own weaknesses. But when the beast is let loose, and you fight tooth and claw for your own dignity, you lose what dignity you had. If the beast loses the fight you are humiliated tenfold. If the beast wins the fight you become nothing more than the monster you believed your accusers to be, feeding the endless cycle of crushing and being crushed. When the beast is loosed, someone will always have to suffer.

Leave it be. Let the proud destroy themselves, as they will sooner or later. Suffer the humiliation, admit to yourself your own shortcomings. Then recall the words of Jesus,

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God,”

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus, we are told by the apostle Paul, was 'beset with weakness.' He grew weary at times, he was overcome often by emotion, and we are even told he was tempted. Weakness in the Bible is portrayed as human limitations, such as sickness or physical challenges, and temptation is the pull to give in to forces that would overcome you, such as tiredness or pleasing distractions.

“See not that you fall into temptation,” he told his drowsy disciples when they were supposed to keep watch. “For the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Yet while Jesus never gave in to temptation, he still suffered from human weakness, being fully human even as he was fully God. The difference between his and ours, however, is that he chose it. He chose to give up his Godly power and dignity. He chose to put himself at the mercy of his enemies. He let them falsely accuse him and sentence him to death. He let them nail him to a cross. He accepted death, and gave up his spirit. He rendered himself helpless – and in doing so conquered not Rome, but Death itself, rising from the dead at the last.

What does this show us about the truth of strength? That it is a gift both given and taken by God, to be used in his name rather than in the name of self-conceit, because he created us and is master of Life and Death.

What does this show us about weakness? That we must accept the challenges God has thrown our way, and remember that if we don't lose heart, we will reap in due season (Galatians 6:9). That for those who endure, God has prepared the crown of life (James 1:12). Because those who praise strength more than they praise God will someday die and disappear, but God will always exist.

So what do we do in the meantime?

Remember that everyone has been given gifts, that there exists not Strength, but strengths, in all forms and in any area, because we are a diverse and complimentary community.

Romans 12:6-8: “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”

Don't believe anyone who tells you you're weak. Even if we can't do what someone else can, we all have our own strengths, even if you or they can't see it at the moment. As Jesus commanded, be kind to your enemies, and serve them out of love, not in fear and without resentment. Without fear, because while man can harm and kill the body, God can throw both the soul and the body into hell. Without resentment, because it's the sick who need a physician, not the healthy. Those who don't know the power of love need someone to show it to them.

You don't know where your own strength lies? Seek and you will find. Pray about it, and remember you're a human being made in God's image.

Your own strength is in you, just waiting to be realized.