PATHOLOGIZING FEELINGS OF GUILT AND SHAME

I think that we all know how relieving it is to be forgiven by our loved ones after we have done them wrong. However, I think that true forgiveness and the freedom to move on requires more.

Unfortunately, secular counseling pathologizes our painful and lingering feelings of guilt and shame, calling them “toxic shame and guilt” and seeks to cover them over with an array of self-talk like:

·       I’ve done the best I could.

·       I’m a good person. Just look at the good I am doing.

·       I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. None of us are perfect.

·       I need to learn how to forgive myself.

But what if these lingering feelings are telling us something we need to hear, and instead of listening to them to decipher their message, we repress them because they are just too painful to deal with? And what if these feelings also include the sense that we deserve to be punished for our sins? This makes these feelings doubly threatening.

I think that what I am pointing out mirrors the biblical revelation. Before all else, when we wrong others, we also wrong their Creator and violate the moral laws that He has imprinted on our hearts. Consequently, we not only need to apologize to those we hurt but also to their Creator and Lawgiver. In both cases, apologies (confession of sin) are necessary for the two parties to be reconciled.

Because of this, when we leave God out of the picture, we condemn ourselves to struggle with our unresolved feelings. How do we deal with them? We try to suppress them and to endlessly try to prove that we are okay, deserving, and good people through our attainments, virtue, and social affirmations. Even worse, it seems that this internal struggle lies at the core of the history of humankind.

Suppression never works. Instead, what we suppress takes control of our lives. Therefore, I continue to confess my sins to God daily. What a burden is continually lifted from my shoulders through this process! As a result, these verses ring so true for me:

·       Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22 (ESV)

The cleansing of our conscience cannot be accomplished by self-talk, self-atonement, or even self-sacrifice. Instead, it comes as a gift from Above to those willing to turn to God from their old life.