Guilty about Shame and Ashamed about Guilt

A few of my friends and I have been trying to make sense of guilt, shame, and conviction recently.

Currently, I believe that many of us have a clouded understanding of the terms and it is having a significant affect on our view of ourselves and God, as well as our understanding of right and wrong. I think our lack of clarity in this area is causing more damage than we realize.

This is me trying to figure things out…welcome to the mental dialogue.

I was beginning to feel guilty a little while back for enjoying my family too much. I revel in my times at home with Abbey and Allen. I block off certain mornings and evenings during the week where I don’t make any work plans or appointments so I can intentionally be with my family. Tuesday mornings and Wednesday mornings are some of my favorite times of the week.

Tuesday is off limits to all people except my wife. We usually call up Tina Fey and Steve Carrell to go out to but if they’re busy we’ll find something to do together ourselves. We went to one of those psycho spin classes at the YMCA the other day and I think we went from being made up of 70% percent water to around 30% from sweating (it’s super romantic too).

Wednesday morning is Trash Truck Day!!! The garbage man comes through our neighborhood around 7:30 a.m. and until then we watch Curious George, eat some breakfast, and listen very closely to the vehicular sounds of the street. We only have a 90 second block to see the trash truck before it whizzes on down the road. But when we’re on our game Allen and I are at the end of the drive way to wave, yell “boom!” when the trash is emptied in to the truck, and receive a complimentary honk from the trash truck guy.

These are important moments during my week and I delight in them thoroughly. But I started feeling guilty. For a couple days or weeks (whatever the duration was) I had a crisis of family, work, and faith. I believe that the Bible is my guide for life, revealing who I am, who God is and how He intends and has enabled me to live. The Bible is pretty clear that as a husband I am to love and lead my wife in such a way that she becomes more like Jesus as a result. So why was I feeling guilty for giving my wife my undivided and deserved attention? I also understand that my Biblical role as a father is to guide my children to godliness through love and discipline. Again, why was I feeling guilty cheering for the trash man?

I know I’m not the only one who wrestles with this whether there’s a Biblical directive or not. You can hear people comment about their “guilt” in various ways all the time.

“I feel guilty for eating that piece of chocolate cake.”

“I feel guilty for staying up too late or sleeping in too long.”

“I feel guilty for missing such and such an opportunity.”

“I feel guilty for not going to their get together.”

“I feel guilty for not doing enough–praying enough, calling family enough, going to church enough, exercise enough, or being enough.”

I don’t think these examples accurately describing what people truly feel. People don’t actually talk about what they feel guilty about. What they call guilt is actually shame.

Shame is being told that we are wrong for being a human and believing we’re worthless, hopeless, a lost cause, or unloved for doing or not doing certain things right or wrong, like eating a piece of chocolate cake or not praying enough.

Guilt is being told by your conscence or by the Holy Spirit that a particular action you’re doing is wrong. This is why I think there’s a mix up. We feel more comfortable believing that we’re worthless than admitting a thought, word, or action we did was wrong.

The Bible explains that the law of God is written on everyone’s heart (Romans 1). So non Christians and Christians alike have an internal awareness of right and wrong. We’ve become very talented in pointing out what other’s do wrong while ignoring our wrongs so we can promote what we do right. The guilt we feel is a channel of communication indicating that what we are doing is wrong not so we can repair our problems but so we’ll become desperate for someone greater than ourselves to heal us. Our natural tendency, other than self-reliance, is to depend on a friend, Oprah, or a self-help methodology to rescue us from our guilt.

Guilt is good if we turn to God in confession and repentance to receive His forgiveness and freedom. I think non Christians feel guilt through their conscience which is telling them certain actions and behaviors are wrong. Shame is Satan’s method of keeping them from receiving God’s forgiveness and experiencing freedom from partaking in the thoughts and actions they feel guilty for by making them believe that God could never love anyone who did those things.

In John 16 Jesus explains that the Holy Spirit becomes the conscience of His followers. The Holy Spirit not only convicts of sin but guides people into thoughts and actions of obedience to God. Guilt is our cue that we’ve done something wrong. Feeling or sensing conviction reveals that we aren’t living in line with the Spirit of God (or disobeying) so we will confess and allow the Spirit to guide us again. Some Christians will say that they don’t feel convicted about a particular behavior prohibited in the Bible so they believe they have the permission to do it until they feel convicted. A follower of Jesus doesn’t need to feel convicted to validate a behavior as sinful. They obey out of commitment not feeling. The Holy Spirit will convict in line with Scripture and in those areas where the Bible doesn’t speak about the issue. Satan uses shame to make Christian’s feel like God doesn’t want anything to do with them for struggling with the sin He already forgave and that they’ll never be free from it either.

Jesus’ death on the cross releases the burden of guilt when we believe God has forgiven us for the wrong things we have done and accept the freedom He gives that enables us to resist doing the things that brought about guilt. Jesus was the payment for the sins we felt guilty for but could never escape, repair, or settle.

Jesus’ death on the cross also releases us from the burden of shame by emphasizing the reality that we are loved and valuable, even while we were guilty of sin, because we’re a creation of God. Jesus disproves Satan’s lies because the cross reveals that we’re worth dying for.

Satan wants me to believe It’s wrong for me to love my family because he knows that’s exactly what God wants me to do. God wants me to admit my wrongs to forgive and set me free from what Satan wants. Shame steals our reception of forgiveness and freedom. Guilt is God’s prompt for us to receive His forgiveness and freedom.

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These thoughts have been rummaging around for a while. They’re complicated and incomplete. Please share any thoughts or questions you have about the issue. Thanks.