In my elementary school years, I had a classmate who annoyed me. So one day I wrote a note, impersonating him as writing a mean note to a girl, and I threw it in the hallway, thinking someone would pick it up and get him in trouble. Someone did pick it up, and they informed the teacher, who called out the guy who annoyed me. He adamantly claimed that he did not write the note. My plan seemed to be working.
Back home that evening, my devious plan totally backfired on me. Not because I got caught and the teacher called my parents. I didn’t get caught. I had falsely incriminated my annoying classmate, and I got away with it. No one suspected me. The reason the plan backfired was how I felt about it. I was wracked with such an intense guilt, I could hardly function. I remember having homework to do, but I couldn’t do it because my mind and emotions were fixated on my evil plot. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was such a jerk.
Have you experienced that? You sin, you err, you miss the mark, you fail, or maybe you’re lazy or apathetic, and inwardly you feel so awful about it, you’re unable to do life. Your experience of guilt and shame means that you are human and you just did what humans do from time to time. We sin. Just because sin is a normal human experience doesn’t mean that it is okay. How should you respond?
In week two of our Advent 2023 blog series looking at different genres of Psalms, we’re going to meet someone who is crippled by guilt. Their poem will help guide us when we have sinned. I think you’ll find this psalm quite relatable and helpful.
Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 