I can’t take credit for that title… Joyce Meyer talked on this topic (you should check out her video teaching). However, it is such a great line, that I wanted to use those words. First we need to realize that ‘guilt’ has many faces. There’s the guilt we feel when we do or don’t do something we know we should/shouldn’t have. There’s the guilt that is used by others (and ourselves) to make us do/don’t do something. There’s the guilt that comes when we aren’t understood or what we ‘meant’ has gone astray.
It is true you know. We can get into guilt trips so fast… and what does it get us? What possible value can be placed on guilt trips? (I do realize that there are some parents that use this as an excuse to get their children to (fill in the blank). Not good. Not wise.) More importantly, have you ever read the Lord using this device. NO! Actually, ‘NO!’ to all those questions. It gets us nothing, there is no value, and the Lord would never use this as a means to get us to do what He wanted.
I suspect we’ve all been ‘guilted’ into doing/not doing something in our lives by someone, at sometime. Point: how did it make you feel? Angry? Upset? Irritated? However, none of the attending emotions were positive… even when it ‘was for our best interest’. The thing is – we all know when we are being guilted into something. And we all don’t like it. I’ve yet to meet a person who said that they liked, enjoyed being guilted. People using this behavior technique probably don’t realize the damage they are doing – at least to the relationship.
We all know the signs when another person is attempting to ‘make’ us do something we don’t want to do or don’t need to do. Being a pawn also is not a pleasant experience. (The ‘pawn’ is being used by another person to make a difference person guilted into doing …) However, we also do this to ourselves. We guilt ourselves into doing something we don’t want to or to hang on to feelings of guilt that occurred because we didn’t do something we thought we should/could.
The value of guilt? Is there any positive outcome? It’s all in the application of the definition. Example, in this case, I am defining guilt as producing sorrow:
“…because your sorrow led to repentance [and you turned back to God]; for you felt a grief such as God meant you to feel, so that you might not suffer loss in anything on our account. For [godly] sorrow that is in accord with the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but worldly sorrow [the hopeless sorrow of those who do not believe] produces death.” (2 Corinthians 7:9-10, AMP)
This verse also distinguishes the behavior between spiritual versus worldly guilt – repentance not hopeless sorrow (depending on the method and other people, you can add anger, regret, frustration, etc.) Sooooo if you are feeling guilted, what is it you are feeling? If repentance, then get on with it and be restored to relationship. If hopeless sorrow (and anger?), then skip the guilt trip. Don’t go there and don’t allow others to try and make you feel guilty. Honestly, we enable and empower others to do this to us – we don’t need to.
Guilt, in my world, has a limited value. I try and never to use it and I tend, perhaps out of spite, to never fall for it. Point is – skip the guilt trip. This rarely has a positive outcome.
