You’ve probably seen this poem in your web wanderings:
Inner Strength
If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your
troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you when,
through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can do all these things . . .
Then you are probably the family dog!
What this humorous bit is playfully suggesting is that our dogs are probably better at living the Christian life than we are!
Hmm . . . I wonder.
Years ago psychologist Bruce Narramore wrote a book in which he suggested that the root of many people’s problems—both spiritual and psychological—is the deeper problem of unresolved guilt. The book was entitled No Condemnation and in it Narramore argued that too many people, including many Christians, are walking around with hearts that are haunted by repressed rather than released feelings of guilt and shame. According to Narramore, latent, hidden feelings of guilt can manifest themselves in our lives in at least five ways:
- Projection: we attribute to others the negative stuff we secretly feel guilty about.
- Repression: we simply deny our feelings of guilt, and guilt-producing feelings, and push them down out of our awareness.
- Compulsive activity: we experience an insatiable need to achieve in order to prove our value and worth.
- Obsessive thinking: we continually accuse ourselves of failing to do the right thing.
- Sublimation: we work out guilt-producing impulses or feelings in a socially acceptable way.
Now, if you know anything about psychology then you also know that these five dynamics cover a lot of territory. What this means, says Narramore, is that latent feelings of guilt, and/or an inability to ever feel truly forgiven, can and will produce a whole host of problems in our lives.
Is it possible that you possess some latent, unreleased feelings of guilt in your heart?
Let’s find out.
I’ve created a list of twenty questions based on the content of Dr. Narramore’s discussion of disguised guilt. As you look them over in rapid succession, do your best to keep count of how many of them you might even come close to saying yes to.
- Do you tend to be a driven person, a perfectionist?
- Do you tend to engage in any compulsive behaviors?
- Do you tend to be critical and judgmental toward yourself and others?
- Do you tend to berate yourself for the mistakes you make?
- Is it hard for you to forgive yourself and others?
- Is it possible that you tend to project onto others the attitudes and actions you secretly feel guilty about?
- Do you tend to be cynical about and suspicious of other people’s motives?
- Do you tend to get angry . . . a lot?
- Do you tend to respond defensively toward any hint of criticism that comes your way?
- Are you plagued by stubborn, nagging feelings of inferiority and inadequacy?
- Is it hard for you to demonstrate or receive expressions of love and affection?
- Is it hard for you to accept praise or compliments?
- Do you possess a compulsive need to manage the impression others have of you?
- Do you tend to be fearful and anxious . . . a lot?
- Is it hard for you to relax without feeling guilty?
- Is it hard for you to make decisions and then feel good about them?
- Do you tend toward depression?
- Has the thought ever occurred to you that you might be guilty of subconsciously sabotaging your own success?
- Do you tend to enter into one unhealthy, abusive relationship after another?
- Do you seem to experience significant seasons of spiritual dryness in your relationship with God?
So, how did you do? Could it be that way too many of us are actually walking around with hearts haunted by unreleased feelings of guilt and shame?
Of course, you know how ironic this is, don’t you? It’s ironic because . . . the Christ we Christians are all about is all over this business of the forgiveness of sins! This is a huge theme in the New Testament as a whole. The phrase “forgiveness of sins,” or a derivative, appears in the NIV of the New Testament no less than 43 times! Not only did Jesus talk a lot about forgiveness, not only was Jesus himself a very forgiving person, but his death and resurrection were things he experienced in order that we might experience the forgiveness of our sins.
In Matthew 26 we read that during the Last Supper he had with his disciples Jesus said:
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:28, emphasis added)
In Acts 13 we read that after proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus to members of the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, the apostle Paul went on to say to his Jewish hearers:
“Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. (Acts 13:38, emphasis added)
And in the first chapter of his letter to the church in Ephesus, where we find Paul singing a hymn of praise to Jesus Christ, we read:
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace… (Ephesians 1:7, emphasis added)
According to these and many other passages in the New Testament, there is an unmistakable connection between the cross-work of Christ and our experience of the forgiveness of sins.
In a sermon entitled “The Prime Principle” Steve Brown made a profound observation about God’s forgiveness:
Have you ever watched a little girl get her new dress dirty just before church? Little girls get their dresses dirty sometimes when they really don’t mean to, and then they’re faced with a number of options.
They can try to hide the dirt by folding the dress over and walking close to their mother. Or they can pretend that they don’t know about the dirt: “Dirt? I didn’t know there was any dirt on me!” Or they can just try to stay away from mother so that mother can’t see the dirt. If mother comes into the living room, the daughter goes into the bedroom. She’ll try to get in the car before her mother gets in.
Or she can do what she ought to do if she has a mother who reflects the grace of God. She can go to her mother and say, “Look, my dress is dirty.” If her mother is right on, she does something about the dirt but not the daughter.
— Steve Brown
Folks, our God is “right on”: he does something about the dirt, but not his sons and daughters.
The God we Christians worship and serve is a God who is compassionate and gracious; actually eager to forgive our sins.
Perhaps the Apostle John had this passage in mind when he wrote:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
But, this leaves us asking ourselves a crucial question today, doesn’t it?
If it’s true that Christ is all about the forgiveness of sins, then why are there so many people, including Christians, walking around with repressed feelings of guilt still haunting their hearts?
The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard used to tell a story about ducks to illustrate how we Christians can hear the message of the Bible without really putting into practice. According to Kierkegaard, there is a town where only ducks live. Every Sunday the ducks waddle out of their houses and waddle down Main Street to their church. They waddle into the sanctuary and squat in their proper pews. The duck choir waddles in and takes its place, then the duck minister comes forward and opens the duck Bible. He reads to them: “Ducks! God has given you wings! With wings you can fly! With wings you can mount up and soar like eagles. No walls can confine you! No fences can hold you! You have wings. God has given you wings and you can fly like birds!” All the ducks shouted, “Amen!” And then they all waddled home.
“And then they all waddled home.” In other words, too many of people hear the message of God’s grace (we may even be the ones who are preaching and teaching it) but then waddle home—we go on living our lives as if our sins aren’t really forgiven!
Prominent Christian counselor David Seamands has written:
Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people. . . . We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions (emphasis added).
According to this Christian counselor, it’s not good enough for us Christians to simply hear and affirm the message of grace; we have to take it to heart!
So, what do we do about this serious situation? Is there anything we can do?
The answer is yes.
If we let Him, the Holy Spirit will massage into our hearts the message of God’s love and grace in such a way as to empower us to release rather than repress our feelings of guilt and shame.
According to the Bible, what happens to and in our hearts is of the utmost importance.
- Proverbs 4:23 tells us that the heart is the wellspring of life.
- Jeremiah 31:33 tells us that God’s goal is to write his word and his will onto our hearts.
- Matthew 13:19-23 tells us that for the message of the Kingdom to do us any good, it has to be planted deeply in our hearts.
Since what happens to and in our hearts is so important, it shouldn’t surprise to read that …
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:5, emphasis added)
The Holy Spirit does a lot of things in the lives of Christ’s followers after we surrender our lives to him; but nothing, absolutely nothing, is more important than this business of impressing upon our hearts the message of God’ love and grace.
Has this happened to you yet? Has it happened lately?
It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how guilty you might feel today. If you ask him to, the Holy Spirit can and will massage into your heart the message of God’s grace and the experience of His love.
And . . .
If there are longstanding feelings of guilt and that are hiding in the recesses of your heart, the Holy Spirit can and will begin a process of inner healing so that you can begin to truly live the new life Jesus died in order to give you.
In one of his books, spiritual disciplines guru Richard Foster tells the following story:
A friend of mine once counseled a seventy-eight-year-old woman. She had been a missionary for fifty years, but now her life, it seemed, was in shambles. She had fears day and night. She was afraid of crowds; she was afraid of stairs; she was afraid of everything. And she was depressed; a deep sadness hung over her entire life. So total was her misery that she was preparing to have shock treatments.
My friend, who is very wise in the care of souls, asked if she had been happy as a child. “Oh yes!” she responded. The next question was a simple one. “When did you begin to feel this sadness and depression?” The reply was quick, “When I was sixteen.” And so my friend asked, “Why? What happened when you were sixteen that caused the sadness?” For the first time in her life, this woman admitted that at sixteen she had an affair with a young man. Fortunately, she did not become pregnant, and the young man soon went away, but she had carried this deep wound in her spirit for over sixty years.
This story absolutely blows me away! Here is a woman who had not only been a church-going Christian, but had spent fifty years of her life as a Christian leader—a missionary. Nevertheless, during all that time she had been walking around with a heart haunted by feelings of guilt and shame before God! Even while she was worshipping and serving God, her heart was filled with fear, sadness and despair, instead peace, joy and hope.
Are you curious about what happened to her?
Richard Foster finishes the story by saying:
My friend prayed for the inner healing of this dear woman, and, wonderfully, within a matter of weeks, the fears and depression began to disappear, so that, as she put it, “I am able to remember that I used to be afraid and depressed, but I can no longer remember what it felt like!”
I don’t know for sure if anyone reading this blog possesses a heart that is filled with repressed feelings of guilt and shame. But I do know that, if you do, there’s hope.
The Holy Spirit is in the heart-massaging business!
Heart massage, anyone?
