One Trip You Don’t Want to Take
If you’re like me, when you go on a trip, you have to find a keepsake to bring back to spark infinite memories. I have a little table that’s like a time capsule of most of my trips. It holds turtles and memories from everywhere… Singapore, Hawaii, Chile, Springfield, Mo., India, California, etc.
But there’s one trip you don’t want to go on, and if you do, you don’t want souvenirs: a guilt trip. You don’t want a regular remembrance of what you’ve done, because it causes anxiety, feelings of unworthiness, imaginations of being forsaken by God and others, unrelenting disappointment in yourself, ongoing shame and more.
If you don’t learn what to do with that heavy load, you’ll go under for days, and maybe weeks to a lifetime.
Maybe you bear the physical or emotional scars from a choice you made years ago that prevents you from forgetting what you did, and you’re tormented by the memories and the turmoil. You’ve asked yourself if God can forgive, and even though you know mentally that He did forgive you when you asked, you feel like you don’t deserve any more special favors from God. You haven’t forgiven yourself, and deep down, you don’t truly believe that God has either. You imagine it comes up in God’s mind as it does in your mind.
If that’s the cause of your despair, there is hope. But it will require reprogramming your mind. It will also require taking yourself in hand, and rather than listening to yourself, you will need to begin talking to yourself. It will be a process at first, but eventually, you will be delivered.
First of all, what you think is unforgiveable is only a blip on God’s radar. Think of the worst thing you could do. I think that would be murder. Were there any murderers in the Bible, and what was the aftermath of their murder? Did God wash His hands of them?
Consider Moses. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. (Ex. 2:12) He murdered someone. Even that did not disqualify him from a life filled with God’s close presence. It was after that that God called Moses from the burning bush and made him a leader. It was after that when Moses was called God’s friend. And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face. (Deut. 34:10) It may have been that very murder that made Moses a meek man. (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.) Num. 12:3 That word meek means poor, weak and afflicted. I’m sure the memory of that murder never left his mind. But rather than disqualify him, it put him in a condition in which God could use him. Because God gives grace to the humble, contrite person.
If you can just look upward rather than look inward, you will find grace, favor and even peace—maybe for the first time. Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God. (Isa. 50:10) Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. (Isa. 26:3)
Trusting God is a process, just like building a new friendship. You don’t trust someone that you don’t know well until that person proves trustworthy. As you see that God is trustworthy, and that He still answers prayer and provides blessings aplenty, in spite of you, you will grow in trust. Eventually, you will leave the guilt behind.