guilt on Losing Yourself

Pastor: Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we gather on this Thursday of Holy Week, let us humbly draw near to the Lord to remember what He has done and to receive what He gives to us by His Word an...

“I get up and pace the room, as if I can leave my guilt behind me. But it tracks me as I walk, an ugly shadow made by myself.”

While exploring an experience of deep guilt and shame with her spiritual director, the author of Madeleine L’Engle, wrote One time I was talking to Canon Tallis, who is my spiritual director as we...

By shifting the focus away from myself and onto Christ and his love for me, I have noticed that everything comes into view. When Martin Luther was suffering under the weight of guilt, his spiritual di...

Guilt comes from within. Shame comes from without.

Years ago, visiting one of the London prisons, I heard a statement made by one of the prisoners that impressed me very much. He said to me, ‘You do not know what a relief it is to be found out.’ We di...

One day Saint Francis and brother Leo were walking down the road. Noticing Leo was depressed, Francis turned and asked, “Leo, do you know what it means to be pure of heart?” “Of course. It means to h...

Suppose my god is sex or my physical health or the Democratic Party. If I experience any of these under genuine threat, then I feel myself shaken to the depths. Guilt becomes neurotically intensified ...

Pastor: Because God is our refuge and strength, we can acknowledge our weakness and confess our sins before Him.  Because He is our fortress, we know we are secure in His grace and mercy.   Sile...

“We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates’ faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects.”

Lord God, we come to adore you. You are the ground of all that is. You hold us in being, and without you we could not be. Before we were born, before time began, before the universe came into being, ...

Leader: Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. People: My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. Leader: All my longings lie open before yo...

Reflection Sister Helen Prejean’s 1993 book Dead Man Walking , adapted into a 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, tells the story of her work with two convicted killers on death row. Sh...

In A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World , Ron Lee Davis shares a powerful story of forgiveness about a priest from the Philippines. The clergyman had carried the weight of one particular sin that ...

Imagine you’ve just purchased a brand-new car—it’s no ordinary car, it’s a luxury vehicle, with the highest trim levels, equipped with all the latest technology. Among its many upgrades is a voice ale...

When grace moves in... guilt moves out.

I just paid a parking ticket the other day. It was easy. I read the charge against me, flipped the ticket over, checked the box that said “I plead guilty to the charge,” filled out a check for $35 to ...

Locked into captivity by an airplane seat, a kindly disposition of keeping a friend company, or a telephone connection, we become ex officio confessors to those with troubled consciences and traces, o...

...I fear that some of us understand just enough about the gospel to feel guilty--guilty that we are not measuring up to some undefinable standard--but not enough about the Atonement to feel the peace...

[Many Christians] below the surface of their lives are guilt-ridden and insecure ... [and] draw the assurance of their acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, th...

Leader: Christ our king, We confess that our ideas of what the kingdom should be like are so different to yours. Where we seek first honor, glory, and praise from others When you would have us take ...

It is quite enough that you have sinned. Now let go of it. Don’t let your despondency lead to an even greater offence. The Lord says, ‘I do not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he repent ...

Most of us are under pressure, external and internal, to do everything, be good at everything, be accountable to everyone for everything! It is not so. In the divine economy each of us has a particula...

“So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”

Leader: Blessed Lord Jesus, before your cross I kneel and see the heinousness of my sin, my iniquity that caused you to be made a curse, the evil that provokes divine wrath. All: Show me the enormit...

All: Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the...

It's Satan's delight to tell me that once he's got me, he will keep me. But at that moment I can go back to God. And I know that if I confess my sins, God is faithful and just to forgive m...

"Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering. There is non...

The Puritans in American Literature “Welcome to Honors American Literature!” You probably haven’t heard that line since high school, right? After his first couple of weeks of school, my boy came home...

When we speak of our sin When we stop the silence and cover up God is faithful to forgive our guilt. Thanks be to God!