"There is a cancerous strain eating away at the average American," writes C. Neil Strait.1 He continues, "It is a strain brought on by too much work and too little play; too much hatred and too little love; too much fear and too little faith. The overbalance has infected life with a strain that eats away at the energies of life like a dreadful disease. The strain that besets a lot of people is more a strain of conscience than any other single factor. Because there is a war with conscience, there is a war on all fronts of life."
"God may forgive (our) sins," writes Alfred Korzybski in the Christian Century, "but (our) nervous systems won’t." Unless we find a release, we cannot continue to live with our own particular break with reality. Guilt is a registering of something wrong deep inside me: something doesn’t fit, doesn’t fit me, doesn’t fit life, doesn’t fit reality, doesn’t fit God.
Recently a Russian author wrote a book, the theme of which was, "If the whole world were covered with asphalt, sooner or later the green grass would break through." If evil and hate are everywhere possessing the world, sooner or later goodness and love will break through. Why? Because these are basic to reality. Guilt is the "scream" of goodness and love denied, both personal and social. We know we have some things for which to answer.
Dr. Edward Stein has written a helpful book, Guilt: Theory and Therapy. He says, "Guilt is the peg on which the meaning of man hangs. It is also the peg on which man often hangs himself." Guilt reveals the violation of reality; but an over-played, false, sick subconscious guilt can destroy one’s life. Dr. Stein continues: "(Guilt) is the dynamic principle operative in man which verifies the fictitiousness of his total autonomy and the validity of his dependence upon all the rest of life, essentially the human community, and supremely, the source and principle of all life, God ..." When we break with God and life, guilt is the red warning light that comes on.
"Guilt is the shadow we cast when we walk in the light of God." With these words Fitzsimons Allison reminds us of a child’s game that all of us have played: "Escape Your Shadow." When a child first becomes aware of his shadow, he is fascinated by it. He runs; the shadow runs. He jumps; so does the shadow. He falls down; the shadow falls down. He can’t escape it. But there is one way: run into the darkness and there is no shadow, no contrast. Many persons in today’s culture have found that solution. They take shelter in an evil environment where no shadow is cast. But this plunge into total darkness develops into total destruction. There is no saving guilt reaction because we are totally possessed by evil.
Someone has given us a parable. A Jewish family in Nazi Germany knew that soon they would be sent to a concentration camp. They wanted desperately to save their retarded son from this destruction. Therefore, they worked out a bargain with a young German soldier who lived on their street. He was to carry their son into the mountains and protect him. For this service they would deed all their property to him.
The soldier accepted. The couple was taken to the concentration camp. The soldier took the child to the mountains and left him to starve. He took over the family’s property and congratulated himself on how clever he was. But the next morning, as he was preparing to shave, he was shocked to discover a bump on his forehead the size of a goose egg. He felt that this bump was declaring his guilt. He pushed and pushed and finally the bump popped in - but it popped out on the back of his head! He pushed and pushed; it popped out on the left side. He pushed again. It popped out on the right side. He pushed again. It popped out on top of his head. He put on his hat and went to work. But guilt is not so easily covered up. It is really inside us.
Or we can illustrate it this way. I am driving to a nearby city to attend a meeting. The little red warning light comes on on the dashboard of my car. I’m in a hurry. I can’t afford to be late. I kick out the little red light and drive on. But soon my motor is ruined.
Not so many of us are so stupid. But we do the same thing with the warning lights that come on in our lives. The guilt experience is a warning light that tells us we are breaking with truth, with reality, with God. Often we cover up our feeling of guilt and continue our destructive practices. How stupid can we get?
Someone in the fourth century knew the meaning of guilt and wrote a hymn to it:
O Felix Culpa (O Happy Guilt)
Praise to thee, dear brother Guilt!
Strong Son of God’s law and love
Who dost not cease thy pricks
When we would stop to play with dangerous toys
Who goads us from the quicksands of anger and (unconcern,)
Who makes our hearts to hunger
Beyond new clothes, new chariots, new kitchens,
New houses, new spouses, or even a new Nation.
I have quarreled with thee, O tenacious
Shadow that I cannot help but cast
as I walk in God’s Light.
I have hated thee as the enemy of my sweet sicknesses.
Thy counterfeits have hurt and wounded me.
But thou art the Handle of God’s Help,
The Gift of His Grace, and
The image of my health;
Thou, in thy True Self,
Art (my Glory’s) True Friend and Brother.
Praise to Thee, O Happy Guilt,
And leave me not ‘till we are both at home.
Guilt is real; it has a purpose. How do we face it?
It was three a.m. The phone rang and rang until I finally surrendered and lifted the receiver. Out of the darkness came an agonizing cry. Just five short words: "Can I ever be forgiven? Can I ever be forgiven? Can I ever be forgiven?" Only this! How do you answer? I spoke to the one in the darkness: "Yes! Yes, you can be forgiven, if you truly want to be forgiven. All the love of God, all the suffering of Christ on a Cross say you can be forgiven. Christ says to you now, ‘Your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more.’ He will forgive you and sustain you." I never found out who called me that night. I hope she got the message and found her peace.
How did Jesus handle those people who came to him paralyzed by guilt? Here is the picture (Mark 2:1-13). Jesus is preaching to a large crowd in someone’s home. Four friends are trying to carry a paralyzed friend to Jesus for healing. The crowd is too great. They can’t get near the Master. They climb up on the flat roof and cut a hole through the roof of boughs and dried mud. They let him down right in front of Jesus. It seems that nothing disturbs the composure of the Master. He looks at the paralyzed man, intuitively reads the situation, and says, "Friend, your sins are forgiven."
When some complained that no one could forgive sins but God, Jesus asked, "Is it easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to say, ‘stand up, take up your bed and walk’?" And to convince them of his power to forgive sins, he commanded the paralyzed man. "I say to you, stand up, take up your bed, and go home." And before the astonished crowd, the sick man got up, took up his stretcher, and went out in full view of them all.
Jesus said to the paralytic, whose inner house was so divided against itself that he could not move, "Your sins are forgiven. Your guilt is lifted. Your break with life, your break with truth, your break with God is healed. Get up, get back into life. That’s where the Father wants you."
God wants his stumbling children forgiven, healed, and restored to their proper place of responsibility in life. Accept forgiveness, and get on with effective life! Jesus changed the picture all over Palestine. Paralyzed people arose and entered again into full life. "Your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more." This is the source of Guilt redeemed. Guilt redeemed, not pushed under your hat.
Out of his own unbelievable experience of forgiveness, Paul cried out, "Where guilt abounds, Grace much more abounds!" This is the spirit of health and wholeness that God gives, because he loves us.
Jesus told of the son who violated his father’s love and went into riotous living, but then decided to return to his father, and was met with open arms. This is the way it is with a forgiving God.
Look at the motion picture, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit: "Like half a million other guys in gray flannel suits, I’ll always pretend to agree, until I get big enough to be honest without getting hurt." But you don’t ever get that big. You go on cheating yourself and others, until you are smothered by dishonesty. The guilt piles up until you cannot handle it. "Only he is free who obeys the Divine order within himself."
Let me share a tragic story. A professional man in a city where I once served had been following a destructive course in his personal life. This practice had been hidden but was suddenly revealed to the entire community. I heard about it and went early in the morning to visit him. I had rarely seen a person in more agony. During his all-night struggle, he had literally bitten through his lip. Soon after this he suffered a paralyzing stroke, and not long after that he was dead.
God did not want this. At any time in the tragic process, this man could have told God about it and asked for forgiveness. God would have forgiven him and restored him. The sad thing was the man had paid no attention to the warning light of guilt.
"When faith goes out the window," declares Sir John Hilton, "something else comes up from the drains." We live that close both to heaven and to hell. In the inner man we touch evil, and we touch God. Darkness and light, how they fight over our souls! But by the grace of Christ, your sins can be forgiven; you can get up and get back into life. The grass can break through the asphalt and live again.
When "I, as-I-am" come to meet "God, as-God-is," my sins are forgiven; my guilt is healed; I am freed from my paralysis.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was an inspiration to young German pastors, years ago, just before his execution in a Nazi prison, confesses his own inner struggle:
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once?
A hypocrite before others -
And before myself a woe-be-gone weakling?
Who am I?
They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am
Thou knowest O God,
I am Thine!
That is the answer. "Whoever I am. Thou knowest O God, I am Thine." When I reach that place of belonging, I am forgiven and I am ever being restored. God is working out his ordered life in me. I am in agitated peace.
Many psychiatrists are beginning to recognize that mental breakdown comes not from repressing basic instincts, but from repressing our normal faith in God, our inner experience of Truth, our inner awareness of a moral order. Cover up the truth, and the truth cries out in many ways. The grass breaks through the asphalt. Faith is the subconscious awareness that God is for us, not against us; that God is not seeking to crush us but to restore us.
I must tell about an old friend of mine. He was 93 years old. I sat on his porch one afternoon and he shared his life with me. He said, "It was 72 years ago, in 1881. It was a Monday night after the first Sunday in October. I went to a little church where they were having a revival meeting. I was crushed under a burden of guilt, made hopeless under a sense of doom; I could hardly breathe. In despair, I offered myself to Christ, just as I was. The burden was lifted; my sins were forgiven; my life was transformed. That was 72 years ago. And to this day I have thanked God for forgiveness and for life, everyday."
Why is this important? I, along with everybody else in that town, knew of the beauty of this man’s life, his unselfishness, his love of others. There was no doubt about the reality of that which had happened to him.
In the unforgettable play, Green Pastures, during the scene where Christ is stumbling under the burden of the Cross, someone whispers, "It is too terrible a burden for one man to carry." That is true, but all the love of God, all the strength of God was bearing it with him. And so it is with you and me, as we struggle under our particular burden. If we let him, all the love, all the strength of God bears it with us. The suffering of God is tied into the secret of our forgiveness.
I know not how that Calvary’s Cross
A world from sin could free,
I only know its matchless love
Has brought God’s love to me!
It was, again, three a.m. The phone disturbed the peace of the night. A nurse from the hospital was calling to say that there was a man who was not expected to live until morning. He was suffering under a terrible burden of guilt. He was frightened; he was in agony. No one could help him. Would I come?
I went. The sick man could not accept forgiveness. We prayed; he found no peace. The time was short. Something in me said, "He has two sons." That was my cue. I said to him, "If one of your sons had sinned against you grievously, if he would rush into this room at this minute and say, ‘I have been false to you; I have let you down. I want to be forgiven. Dad, can you forgive me? Dad, please forgive me.’ What would you do? Would you turn him down? Or, would you forgive him?"
A look of peace came into his face, a smile crept about his lips. He answered, "I would forgive him."
And I replied, "So also is the forgiveness of the Heavenly Father."
He had gotten the message. He was at peace.
Friend, thy sins be forgiven thee, your break with God is healed. Arise, get back into life.
1. "Strait Lines" Quote Magazine. May 2, 1976, p. 425.