• Editor’s note: “Spiritual leaders answer on…” is a weekly column inviting Kaua‘i’s religious and spiritual leaders to share their doctrines’ perspectives on a suggested subject. Every Friday a topic is printed inviting a response. Submissions are edited for content
• Editor’s note: “Spiritual leaders answer on…” is a weekly column inviting Kaua‘i’s religious and spiritual leaders to share their doctrines’ perspectives on a suggested subject. Every Friday a topic is printed inviting a response. Submissions are edited for content and length. Thoughts or suggestions for future topics are always welcome. Next week’s topic is love. The topic at the end of the column is for the following week.
Pastor Wayne Patton
Anahola Baptist Church
The psalmist David once said, “My guilt has overwhelmed me, like a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly” (Psalm 38:4-5). Not only do we bear the regret for specific wrongs we commit, we bear the guilt of a sinful nature that is in rebellion against God.
All the world seeks for ways to deal with its guilt. We fight this spiritual cancer that feeds on our souls in a variety of ways. Many people deal with guilt by drowning it. Some drown it in alcohol and drug abuse. Other people deal with guilt by denying it. They believe we can live any way we want because there is no such thing as genuine guilt before God. Some people deal with guilt by deflecting it. They blame other people or their environments for their failures, faults and shortcomings.
Sooner or later, all these techniques fail. Guilt is the corrosion of the soul. It cannot be drowned, denied or deflected. We can only dissolve it in the blood of Jesus Christ (Luke 24:46-47). The blood of Jesus Christ alone has the power to cleanse us of sin and relieve us of guilt. The hymnist Charles Wesley just put it this way: “He (Jesus) breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the captive free. His blood can make the foulest clean; His blood availed for me.”
Kahu James Fung
Lihu‘e Christian Church
God created us with a sophisticated self-accountability mechanism to help us maintain our moral balance. When we do something that we know to be wrong it kicks into action. The feelings of guilt gnaw at our conscience, creating an inner disease, disturbing our ability to sleep peacefully at night. These feelings detract from our sense of self — how we want to feel about ourselves.
When I was in grade school, I let a boyhood friend talk me into shoplifting a bar of candy from the neighborhood grocery store. “It’s easy,” my friend explained. “The trick is to do it quickly and put in your pocket in one fluid motion, and not look guilty.” It worked. But that stolen candy bar created a huge problem for me. I was basically a good kid, who never broke any laws, up until then. I was also not the kind of child who concealed things from my parents. And so, that misdeed, one afternoon plunged me into a new reality — of being a person that I didn’t enjoy being. I felt stained by the wrongness of stealing, a fear that a police officer might show up at the house to arrest me and, worse, that my parents may find out.
The guilt weighed heavily upon me. I knew I had to do something about it. And so, as tough as it was to do, I did what I had to do, because not to do it was tougher than to do it. I went back to the store and told the owner that I made a mistake. I explained how I took the candy bar, told him I was sorry, gave him the money for it, and asked if he was going to tell my parents. He looked at me and asked me if I ate the candy bar. I told him, “Yes.” He asked me if it tasted good. I told him honestly that I didn’t enjoy it. Not only that, but that I hadn’t eaten a candy bar since the crime.
He told me that there was not need to tell my parents. He said, “Something inside of you already taught you a lesson.”
The feelings of guilt when we have gone against God’s plan for life are a gift. When we do something wrong, we can’t undo it. But the Bible tells us that when we confess our wrongs, God will forgive us and restore us to the state of harmony with God that makes us like and respect ourselves again.
The Baha’is of Kaua‘i
Guilt is neither helpful nor productive. To dwell on our shortcomings without action to rectify our conduct is fruitless. Likewise, any attempt to remove guilt through confession to a clergy is ineffective and forbidden in the Baha’i Faith. Instead, seek pardon directly from God for He alone has the power to forgive.
The following guidance has been provided in the Baha’i writings:
“When the sinner findeth himself wholly detached and freed from all save God, he should beg forgiveness and pardon from Him. Confession of sins and transgressions before human beings is not permissible, as it hath never been nor will ever be conducive to divine forgiveness. Moreover such confession before people results in one’s humiliation and abasement, and God — exalted be His glory — wisheth not the humiliation of His servants. Verily He is the Compassionate, the Merciful.”
Lama Tashi Dundrup
Kaua‘i Dharma Center
To remove guilt from the mind and the mind of others, one applies the four powers of repairing the negative results caused by negative or harmful activities of body, speech and mind, which are the cause of guilt. These four spiritual powers are: To recognize these negative causes; To have remorse for them; To apply the remedy or spiritual practice to correct the harm done by them; To resolve never to do these again in the future. The Dalai Lama said “I have no time for one negative thought.” Therefore no harmful words or deeds result.
Topic for two weeks from today
• Will you speak to us on peace?
• Spiritual leaders are invited to e-mail responses of three to five paragraphs to afrainier@thegardenisland.com.
• Deadline each week is 5 p.m. Tuesday.
