Saturday, May 23, 2015

Why Don't I Feel Guilty?

At 19 years old, I was only a Christian for less than a year. After I had co-led a Bible Study, a young man came up to me and asked to talk to me in private.  In another room, he told me that he had an affair with another man and it was bothering him.

What was bothering him was not that he had the affair, but that he didn't feel bad about it at all.  So he was feeling bad that he didn't feel bad.  I have seen this same issue with other Christians as well.  A married woman has an affair with a another man and she feels good about the affair - really good.  But then she torments herself with questions and doubts and feelings of remorse because she felt good about it.   Like the young man, she is afraid that God doesn't care about her anymore. 

Many Christians hold on to the idea that after affair they would feel terrible.  They would feel terrible because they knew that if they had an affair, they would have disappointed God, themselves and others.  People feel like if they have an affair then they would have disappointed their own standards and expectations of themselves. But when the affair happens, none of the feelings they expect to happen really take place.  Instead of feeling bad, they feel good, and because they feel good, they feel bad that they feel good. 

Yes, it sounds messed up.  There are probably different reasons people are disappointed in not feeling bad.  Some may feel like God has distanced himself from them.  Some are just disappointed that their values were so distant from their actions and they expected some sort of emotional punishment for coming short on what they valued so much.   

As I listened and then gave advice to the young man, even though I was a young Christian who had no training in helping people, I told him pretty much the same thing I would tell anyone today. "You don't need to feel convicted and guilty; you know what's right and what's wrong already.  Furthermore, God has not abandoned you.  Just put an end to the affair and get things right with God."

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