Psalm 32:3-4

3 When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long.

4 Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.

New Living Translation

 

Guilt is a horrible thing.  I often find myself feeling guilty.  Even for things that are not my fault.  If my kids, my husband, or a coworker are in a bad mood, I feel horribly guilty, sure that I have done something wrong.

It is even worse when I really am to blame.  Like when I say something unkind, and hurt someone's feelings.  Or when I forget something important, and let others down.  Or when I do something selfish.

Guilt takes its price.  It exhausts us, wears us down, eats away at our mental peace.  But we don't have to live with guilt.  There is a cure for it! 

We can hold on to it, refusing to admit our guilt.  We can try to ignore it, hoping it will just go away.  We can blame others for it.  But those things don't take the burden away, they only bury it.

The better option is to confess it.  Admitting our failures and accepting God's graceful forgiveness, combined with a commitment to learn from our failure and not repeat it, has the power to set us free from the guilt that makes our hearts so heavy.