Walking On WaterНамуна

 Guilt

The Lord met me through the prayers of someone I’d just met when I went to England. He was praying for physical healing, but somehow my buried emotional pain surfaced. As I told my story for the first time, he reminded me of Jesus’ offer of forgiveness. The truth that I could be forgiven even if I’d let my sister die on purpose (which of course I hadn’t) was like a wrecking ball. It's the wonderful foundation of truth that we can all be free of guilt, no matter what we’ve done or how much shame we feel. As 1 John 1:8 says, “If we confess and repent, God is faithful to forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness” or as The Message puts it, “If we admit our sins - make a clean breast of them - he'll be true to himself. He'll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.” This is the ultimate truth that those of us who struggle with guilt need to embrace. Having this revelation was the beginning of freedom, but there was still a long way to go to get healing from the damage done through years of carrying the burden of guilt. 

We are all guilty when it comes to God's standard. Remember that Peter’s experience of the miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5 left him acutely aware of his own sinfulness. No one is able to live perfectly, so we all have the effects of sin to deal with in our lives, but we know that Jesus deals with  sins through the cross. The problem is that, for a variety of reasons, some of us aren't able to move into that place of feeling free from guilt, even if we know in our heads that we are forgiven. The type of guilt that I lived with for so many years is the feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offence, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined. The devil loves to keep us trapped in a place of feeling guilty, because when we are stuck there, we won't be able to grow and develop in the things of God as we should. Like Adam and Eve, we hide from others, ourselves and God. The only way forward is to stop hiding, face what we’d rather keep buried, and let God deal with it. For me, that has therefore almost always involved someone else praying for me or with me. Its been a gradual process but a powerful channel of God’s healing.