A few months ago, I lost a former high schoolmate in a car accident. Now, earlier in the day I got the terrible news, I felt the urge to pray for him.
I did pray.
However, I found myself feeling very guilty.
Somewhat, I felt responsible for his death. I felt that if I prayed for him harder, he might have survived.
The more I pondered on it, the worse I felt.
After some weeks, I had enough of the dark veil of guilt hovering over me and sought a way out. It was quite a journey but God helped me through it.
In the next few minutes, I will share a few things that I found helpful in my journey of dealing with guilt and finding healing.
If you are struggling with guilt and desire healing, you could pick a thing or two from my experience.
I will condense it into four points.
Acknowledgment
Acknowledging guilt is easier said than done.
I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t bring myself to face it. In fact, I convinced myself that once I dealt with grief, the guilt would dissipate.
Well, it didn’t.
Later, I begrudgingly admitted that I was feeling guilty. Only then did I start actively looking for solutions.
Friend, don’t be like me. You can run but you cannot hide. Sooner than later, guilt will catch up with you.
So, acknowledge the guilt of your sin quickly (Psalm 32:1-5). Do so for non-sin issues that left you feeling guilty as well. The quicker you admit you are feeling guilty the better for it then releases you to start looking for solutions sooner.
The fact you are here shows you have acknowledged or are in the process of acknowledging it. Kudos for taking the brave step.
Now let’s get practical.
Prayer
Once I acknowledged guilt, prayer came in handy. I poured my heart out to God and sought a resolution.
It worked. God healed me. The guilt lifted off.
You can appropriate the gift of healing through prayer as well.
If you have sinned, repent. Ask God to forgive, renew, and restore you. If your guilt is not sin-related, still take the matter to God in prayer. Pray that God brings internal settlement and healing.
As you take your worries to God in prayer, you will know you are on your path to healing when peace and joy start replacing the guilt (Philippians 4:6-7).
Rest in God’s sovereignty
After you’ve prayed, rest in God’s sovereignty.
I found peace when I appreciated God is sovereign. Even if I prayed and fasted for my classmate, if God determined he would die, it would still have happened. My actions would not have thwarted God’s purpose (Job 42:2/ Psalm 115:3).
God’s sovereignty answers many questions we grapple with.
See, nothing happens without the knowledge of the omniscient God. As much as Yahweh uses human beings to do His bidding, many times He works out His will and purposes on earth in spite of us.
If you don’t do it someone else will. If it didn’t happen the way you thought, it will still happen in another way to the perfection of God’s will.
Other times God works good out of the bad situations we get ourselves in.
So, stop assuming you have let God down so much that His purpose for your life will be thwarted. If you surrender to and cooperate with God, He can use the detours to propel you to your destiny.
Whatever happens, rest in God’s sovereignty.
Accept forgiveness
You would think that after acknowledging guilt, praying, and resting in God’s sovereignty, accepting forgiveness would come automatically.
Well, not quite.
Experience shows that perhaps it’s the most difficult step. The law of sowing and reaping rightly conditions us to expect punishments for sin or what we interpret as bad actions. The graver the sin, the worse the punishment expected.
This can hinder God’s work in our lives. Don’t let it.
Accept God’s forgiveness. God is faithful to forgive (1 John 1:8-9). Once you have repented, believe He Has forgiven you and go your way and continue living for and serving God.
After accepting God’s forgiveness, forgive yourself too.
Again, this is more challenging than it sounds. We tend to be our worst critics. Many times we find it easier to forgive others than ourselves.
Do yourself a favor. Accept whatever happened did happen, accept God’s forgiveness, and crown it by forgiving yourself.
And do so quickly so that sorrow of guilt does not morph into condemnation.
Write your story
Don’t wallow in guilt a day longer. Not when healing is readily available in Christ. He healed me. No matter the cause, God can heal your guilt as well. I hope you have picked something that can help you to heal faster.
If you overcame guilt, let me know what worked for you in the comments below.