The second point is the second type of stress, which is silly. It’s the sense of guilt. You all know that the sense of guilt is a gift from God. We need to feel guilty sometimes to repent, we had to feel guilty when we do some bad things, we feel like there is something wrong.
I need to say. Sorry. Okay, that’s very important, but there is kind of a fake sense of guilt, a silly sense of guilt, something disturbing your mind and your heart, which is not correct. So not all the guilt feeling is correct or healthy. Some guilt feeling is destructive.
Cain
In the forms of this silly self-sense of guilt, again when “Cain” felt guilty. If you read the book of Genesis, you will find out that Cain after killing his brother, felt so much guilt, but he never repented.
The sense of guilt may push you to repent but may push you away from repentance with the feeling of failure and feeling of rejection. So negative thoughts may come with a sense of guilt and you will never repent and you lose hope.
Esau
Again, in the story of “ Esau “, Esau felt guilty sometimes, but he never repented. And he tried to kill his brother again, so there is always a useful sense of guilt. It’s like the introduction to repentance, the first step in repentance, we all need to feel guilty sometimes, but there is another imaginary or exaggerated sense of guilt, which is destructive and that’s the silly stress.
The gravity of this silly sense of guilt. First of all, it will be: Stress your heart all the time. Some people are living their life, carrying a big burden of stress, which is guilt feeling. I had seen some good mothers. She felt all her late days, like the last 20 years in her life, she’s depressed all the time, feeling guilty that she did not, you know, bring up her children in a very Christian way.
How is it like to Feel Guilty?
They did not stick to the church. So they felt all the time depressed, and guilty, and she tried to kill herself many times. So that’s not correct. Because she had stopped praying. She stopped having any hope in God. So it works like a break against growth and happiness.
Imagine someone who is like driving a car and the break is, you know, functioning all the time. You cannot move on. You cannot drive your car. People may not enjoy anything in life, just because of this silly stress of having the guilt feeling all the time.
Again, sometimes you may have this guilt feeling and be abused by others. Some people are smart and they know that you are feeling guilty.
They make use of this guilt feeling and they aggressively push you to feel guilty all the time to control your life, to take what they need. they abuse you when they know that you are the one. Who is stressed with this feeling of guilt? And, They want you to feel this guilt feeling all the time.
Also, when you have this exaggerated, silly feeling of guilt, it may lead you to despair, depression, to some kind of fear. So it will destroy your life.
What is the cause of guilt feeling?
And the causes of this destructive guilt feeling, the major factor behind this bad feeling is if you faced many times in your life, the high criticism and the harsh, tough words of those who are, you know, telling you “ You are bad “, “ You are a big failure “. with this severe criticism, usually the one will grow with a bad feeling of stress.
Also, those who are described being perfectionists, love to have everything perfect. These people are more liable to have this feeling of guilt feeling all the time.
Another good reason behind this bad feeling is the wrong education. Someone told me one day that, I’m always depressed. I always feel guilty because of the teaching of the church. You always blame us. You always tell us you are bad. You do not comment on the grace of God enough. You do not speak about the love of God.
You do not speak enough about the mercy of God. So I feel always guilty. I can never please God. I will never catch the kingdom of heaven. That’s the outcome of the teaching of the church, which is not correct. The teaching of the church should be balanced between the grace of God, the merciful God, and also the struggle of man, the role of a man.
So if the teaching is eccentric and we focused only on that you have to do 1, 2, 3, 10, and you do not comment on the work of God himself, you are pushing everyone to feel guilty all the time.
Again, when someone spent most of his life away from God, he feels so much guilty. but sometimes it does not push him to repentance.
How to stop the guilt feeling?
People may say, I will never be accepted by God. How much, how many things I have done. And the burden is really heavy. So for these people, they lose hope.
The remedy for this stupid or silly sense of guilt is simply to regain hope in God. The hope, the virtue of Christian hope you have hope in God, you don’t have hope in yourself.
We are not looking up to ourselves. We are not seeing ourselves as saints. We are not saying that we will change ourselves or change the world. We are always saying the grace of God will do this and that. So when you have strong hope in God, now you conquer this bad feeling of guilt, whatever you have done in your life.
And also you may nourish this feeling, the hope virtue by, you know, keeping the promises of God in your minds. When you study the Bible, when you read the gospels and you stick to the word of God, you will feel the hope. You will feel like God loves you. In this case, you will overcome the negative thought and the negative feeling.
Analyze what happened in a wise way
Another important management here is, you know, to analyze what happened in a very wise reasonable way because some people tend to blame themselves for every single detail happening. You should not blame yourself for the death of someone because you love this man. So why you would just blame your heart. I had seen in this Corona year, that hundreds of people felt so much guilt because someone in their family lost his life with the covid.
And I listened to all the bad sentences. Like I’m the killer. I did not care enough. I did not imagine that this would happen. I had to take him to another hospital. I did not diagnose the case early. We should have done so and so.
You know these all silly stresses coming from that fake sense of guilt, as far as you love this guy did not want him to die.
So you had done what, you know, you shouldn’t blame yourself. It’s the decision of heaven. So we need to be wise when we analyze things, you know, you need not blame yourself for every negative thing happening.
Ventilation in prayer
Also for this bad feeling, you need to ventilate, you need to speak it up, speak it out. You need some good ones to listen to your emotions. So when you speak about your heart feelings, when you speak about your thoughts, this will help you to overcome this bad feeling.
And also when you ventilate in praying, God I am bad. I had done a big sin, but when you pray from your heart, you will enjoy the joy of the spirit. You will enjoy the peace of heaven and the forgiveness of God.
And by this, you will overcome the sense of guilt.
Remember. Paul faced a sense of guilt, because he was the reason you know, killing many people. He was the prosecutor of the Christian Church in the early days, but he never, you know, felt this silly stress because he believed in the forgiveness of God.
He enjoyed the love of God. He was a man of praying. So because of the power of prayer, he overcame it. Again, you need to control your mind. You need to stop these negative voices saying you are the reason you are the one to be blamed. You are the killer. You have to stop these devilish voices because you need to enjoy your life and move forward.
So that’s another type of silly stress we need to overcome. Glory to God. Amen.
