Sans Guilt

I wrote the following post in my journal on 12 Dec 10.

Today is my first Sabbath in three and a half months. It was timely. Last week, my second week attending a new church, I felt my heart stirred in affection for Christ (those words came most readily to mind from my friend Josh Martin) in a way that I haven’t experienced since I moved here. Sans community I have very much been living a secular life.

While I would never recommend ditching Christ, church or community I have noticed an interesting by-product of my recent secular life: the disappearance of guilt. For at least the last five years guilt has been a constant presence in my life, probably exasberated by the feeling of what my life with Christ “should” look like when I am on staff in ministry. I couldn’t find a way to escape all the expections I was putting on myself. There were seasons of grace but guilt was the constant.

So now having barely spoken to Christ, read my Bible, and been without biblical community, my desire to return to Christ now, catalyzed by finding a better church, is one without guilt. I feel no need to gravel at the feet of Jesus. I have confessed and apologized but I don’t feel the pervasive need to “repent and repeat” ad nauseaum so to speak.

How freeing that has been. I can see it in how this past week has played out. Sunday my heart was stirred for Christ and Monday I started a new job. It was a busy week of a steep learning curve, quitting Target and finishing shifts there. So I didn’t really spend any time with Christ. But here I am sitting in a bookstore Sunday after church reading my Bible without the guilt and the “should haves” hanging over my head.

What a marvelous feeling to have your default position switch from guilt to grace.

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