There’s a scene at the beginning of the second Superman film where three Kryptonian criminals are on trial. One by one the ghostly images of jurors on huge monitor screens pronounce their verdict in sepulchral tones, ‘Guilty. Guilty. GUILTY!’
How often we hear those voices in our head, how often we feel guilty if we do something that we shouldn’t have done or don’t do something we should have? How often do we do or stop ourselves from doing through fear of guilt? How often is this guilt irrational and unrelated to either God’s law or the law of the land, or even general moral law?
As those of you who read yesterday’s blog will know I’ve picked up one of those winter bugs that is doing the rounds. I’m not feeling particularly well and should have stayed at home in bed. Instead I drove about 110 miles and then walked another 1 ½ miles to get back to college. I now feel quite unwell and will be spending the rest of the day resting (I’m typing this lying on my bed). Why didn’t I just stay at home? Because I would have felt guilty about not being in college.
Why would I have felt guilty? I had a genuine reason for staying put at home. Being ill is a valid reason for not being in lectures etc. Why would I have felt guilty? I really don’t know.
I do know that often in the Christian life we feel guilty about things we really shouldn’t. It is good to take sin, rebellion against God, seriously but we must not allow it to overwhelm us or cripple us with feelings of guilt. We must bring it to God in confession and repentance and let it go; not continue to fret about it and worry about it, feeling guilty about it.
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