HE HAS OUR BACKS

Proverbs 1:32  “For simpletons turn away from me—to death. Fools are destroyed by their own complacency.”

Last week I talked a bit about apathy, but today I would like to talk a little bit about its not too distant cousin, complacency.  Apathy is being disengaged with the surrounding world and circumstances whereas complacency is being satisfied with less than the surrounding  world and circumstances have to offer.  

Complacency is settling for less than what we should because we have a false sense of contentment.  It makes us sit back on our hands instead of forging ahead in our spiritual lives.  Unfortunately, complacency is the disease that everyone denies having.  As we all know, however, the first step in getting well is admitting we have a problem.

Complacent Christians have the idea that they have arrived.  In America this is an especially easy state of mind to fall into.  We have it pretty easy compared to the rest of the world.  Why should we get callouses on our knees praying when we have almost all we want and more.  Unfortunately, when we lack any feeling of need or desperation, we get sloppy in our worship.   

Barna Research reports that since the nineties, Americans have become more spiritually complacent. 40% of born again Christians do not attend church or read the Bible in a typical week, 30% are not “absolutely committed to the Christian faith” and 70% are not involved in a small group that meets for spiritual purposes. The percentage of adults who can be classified as “born again” rose from 35% from the early 90s to 41% in the early 2000s. However, participation in 4 key behaviors declined and have continued to decline in this century; Bible reading (down from 45% to 37%); church attendance (from 49% to 42%); volunteering at church (from 27% to 20%); and adult Sunday school attendance (from 23% to 19%).   The Covid crisis did not helped matters.  It was found that many of the people who got in the habit of not attending due to Covid did not return after Covid.   

There is a story of a tool company that manufactured drill bits. Faced with financial losses, company executives gathered to discuss the problem: a declining demand for drill bits. The CEO challenged his men: “How can we revive the bit market?” After an embarrassing silence, one member of the team dispelled the fog: “Sir, the market isn’t for bits–its for holes!” This simple truth illustrates what the church needs to recognize.  Complacent people feel fulfilled because they don’t feel needy. People are not in the market for spiritual activity because they don’t see a need for spiritual activity.     When someone needs to drill a hole he will think about buying a drill bit and when someone needs to fill a hole in his life he will look for a place to fill it.   In this time the church needs to be that place for unbelievers and believers alike.

There is the story of three demons who were exchanging ideas to bring about the downfall of man.  The first said, “Let’s tell them there is no God.”  The second said, “Let’s tell them there is no Hell.”  The third said, “Let’s tell them that there is no hurry.”  It seems to me that they settled on the third suggestion.

Revelation warns us about this complacency in the future.  “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,”  (Revelation 3:15-17)  Is that the future or has the future arrived?   God warns us of being lukewarm because it is more dangerous than being hot or cold.  It has just enough heat to make us believe that we are okay.  That kind of deception is a favorite ploy of Satan and many in the church seem to be falling for it.

There is a great story about the famous, fiery English pastor, A.J. Gordon, who became the pastor at a large, well-established, but cold Boston church.  After just a few weeks many of the senior members of the congregation moved to oust him because of his bold condemnation of the lifelessness of the church.  After about a month, right before the axe was about to fall he gave a sermon called “The funeral of the Church.”  It was a no-holds-barred, tell-it-the-way-it-is, God’s-Word-is-His-Word sermon.   The theme was that the church was a casket and like a casket there was no room for converts because coffins are built for only the dead.  He warned them of impending disaster if they did not repent.  It was an hour of truth.  Toward the end of the sermon the doors in the back of the church swung open and six solemn-faced pall bearers carried a casket up to the front.  Pastor Gordon lifted the lid and challenged the congregation to file past the coffin to view the deceased on the way out.  In the coffin, you guessed it, a giant mirror.

It seems to me that too many of us today need to look in the mirror to see if our complacency is leading unto death.  Paul tells us,  “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test?”  (2 Corinthians 13:5)   It is hard to change others, but we can start with ourselves.  Have we become “fat and sassy” in our christian lives?  Are we going through the motions because that is all it takes anymore?  Do we put more time into the needless and neglect the needful?   We need to be cautious so that we don’t fall into the trap that Paul warns us of in Corinthians,   “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”  (1 Corinthians 10:1)

So it is time for the church put on its big-boy pants.  It is hard to put pants on someone else, so we should worry about our own legs first, but we shouldn’t be shy about pointing out lack of fervor in the Body of Christ.  It is time to take our spiritual lives seriously even if things are going so well that it seems we don’t need God.  That is, of course, facetious.  No matter how it seems, we need God.  We should not be fooled.  The demons have lied.  There is a hurry and those around us could use our hurriedness on their behalf.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace  of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:4-7

Our verses for today are familiar ones, but like many verses, need to be revisited quite often because worry often gives small things a big shadow and that big shadow can blot out today’s sunshine.  Worry is faith in reverse.  Instead of freeing us, it imprisons us, and most often about things that might not even be real.

There was a woman who constantly worried about burglars and never got a night’s sleep anticipating a nightly break-in.  Finally, after her husband had gone downstairs night after night to investigate normal sounds and invisible burglars, he actually came upon a man who had sneaked his way into the house.  “Well, hello there,” the husband exclaimed, “I am pleased to meet you.  Would you mind coming upstairs to meet my wife.  She has been waiting ten years to meet you.”  That is often what worry is all about.  Anticipating what may not happen at the expense at what does.

Worry often extracts interest on trouble before it comes due.  Like someone wise once said, “I’ve had a lot of trouble, most of which never happened!”  God calls us to turn over our cares to Him, but that is easier read than done.  God knows that we will still worry because we are fretters by nature.  Our sin nature has bred worry into us because faith is intentional while anxiety is natural.   Worry is a useless pursuit because it never gets us closer to a goal and on the contrary it slows our progress.

When I used to coach I told the players to learn their assignments so well that they did not have to worry about what they were going to do (that would just slow them down),  and consequently, they could just go out and do.  That is what we should strive to do- turn our worries over to God so that we can just do. David tells us, “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul.” (Ps 94:19) If we don’t nip our worries in the bud, they will flourish into a weedy garden that will take all our time to work. We will spend more time on worry than worship and more time being anxious than active.

In these verses, God gives us several commands:  Always rejoice.  Be reasonable.  Never worry.  Come to God with your requests about everything.  These are not empty words like we so often hear from friends in times of need.  “Hang in there,” and “Tomorrow will be a better day,” and “Just put it out of your mind,” are all well-intentioned, but powerless statements.  They give the end without the means.  It is almost like giving someone the infamous Bermuda Triangle of directions, “You can’t miss it.”

How to “hang in there” is just as important as how to “get there.”  The how-to-dos are more important than the what-to-dos.

So God tells us how to negate the worries that assail us.  If we pray, if we rejoice, if we turn our requests over to Him, and if we are thankful, it will be hard to remain anxious.  Somewhere in that process, the worry will begin to melt.  Most of what we worry about is not worth the time investment anyway.

There was a man who decided to make a Worry Wednesday.  He would set aside his worries until Wednesday and worry about them then.  The funny thing was that by the time Wednesday rolled around, most of the worries he had were not worries any longer.

One thing we can do to cut back on worry is to be prepared.  When I give a speech, I don’t worry if I have truly taken the time to prepare (only the people I am speaking to are worried).  It is the same for us in life.  Paul says, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”  (1 Corinthians 16:13) If we are in the Word, think upon God, and surround ourselves with godly influences, we will be prepared to handle what others might just worry about.  With preparation we will set aside much of what the world worries about.

We need to eliminate those things that will never happen.  There is an old Scottish saying “What may be, may not be.”  We have a tendency to worry about what might be even though it will, under all measurements, probably never be.  When ebola hit the US, some people spent so much time worrying about the disease, that it probably took more time off their lives than ebola ever could.  The Covid Crisis a few years past presented the same challenge to thousands who might have been “worrying themselves to death.”  That kind of worry is like being afraid to eat food because it might have chemicals in it and then starving to death.  It is said that 40% of what we worry about has no real chance of ever touching us.  Let’s eliminate those first.  We never want to worry too much about things over which we have no control at the expense of things we can control.

The next worry we should get rid of is things that have already past. In coaching I always said that the only important play is the next one.  If we allow the failure on the past play to affect our performance on the next we have given it more power than it deserves.  Here is the scenerio: a pitcher makes a good pitch and we swing, miss, and look silly in the process.  If we don’t shake that off and instead let that pitch affect our next swing, we have given the pitcher credit for what she has not earned.  The previous one pitch controlled us twice.  That should never be.  If we spend time in our daily lives worrying about the past, it will affect our present. We should not give more power to what is gone than what is yet to come.  I am retired now and it seems I am paying taxes on the same money I have already paid taxes on a couple of times before.  When it comes to worry, we should not spend energy on worries that we have already paid on before.

Finally, eliminate those worries about untrue criticism that comes from others.  If it is true criticism, listen to it, make changes, no worries.  If it untrue, ignore it, no worries. Not everything that people bring to our attention is worth keeping there. Some of the things that people criticize us for cannot be changed anyway.  If I worry about people who don’t like how short I am, that is a waste of time.  My last growth spurt was fifty years ago.  I am not holding my breath.  Some criticism is that foolish.

So, once we have eliminated those things that won’t happen, have already happened, or don’t matter if they happen, what do we do with the approximately 8% that is left.  Those are the legitimate worries that we need to take to God as He has instructed and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will become ours.

Admittedly, it is easier to complain than rejoice, be bitter rather than thankful, and panic than pray, but those are useless endeavors.  In Africa there are people who rely on witch doctors rather than real doctors and we think that is foolish.  But we are doing the same thing if we think complaining, bitterness, and panic are more effective than rejoicing, thankfulness, and prayer.  I had a friend once that complained about always having peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.  I told him that he should have his wife fix something different, but he told me he fixes his own lunches.  It doesn’t make sense to complain about that we have control over any more than it makes sense to worry about things we shouldn’t.

It is so wonderful that the promises in our verses today are being delivered by a great God.  God welcomes us to bring our worries to Him.  I think it is our responsibility, however, to run them through a strainer first.  We can take every single worry to Him, but some should not be worries in the first place.  Our vice principal was talking to me years ago about how some teachers send him students for not bringing a pencil to class or doodling during a lecture.  Those are not heavy-duty discipline issues.  Those should be handled by the teacher.  Well, God expects us to look at our worries with discernment and take care of some of those before we send them to the office.

A while back I gave a lecture on router use in my shop class.  I said if the machine misbehaves, the first thing they need to do is turn it off.  A student ask me, “Shouldn’t we ask you first?” and I told him that I would just tell him to turn it off, so he can eliminate the middleman and do what I would tell him to do anyway.  If I am worried about my weight, God will probably tell me to exercise and eat right.  I can go right to those things without worry.  If I am worried about the way people see me, maybe I should treat people the way God’s Word instructs.  That might take care of a lot of worry.

Christian author John Blanchard has said it well, “So he supplies perfectly measured grace to meet the needs of the godly. For daily needs there is daily grace; for sudden needs, sudden grace; for overwhelming need, overwhelming grace. God’s grace is given wonderfully, but not wastefully; freely but not foolishly; bountifully but not blindly.”

God said it even better, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”    (John 14:27)

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”  (Leviticus 19:18)

Today I would like to talk about the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Many people look at these as one of the same, but they are not.  Because there is a misunderstanding of both terms, many see forgiveness as impossible because reconciliation is impossible.  Fortunately for us these actions are not dependent on each other, but are mutually independent.  Satan would like to join them together as two sides of the same coin and the result is often neither forgiveness nor reconciliation.  God’s Word gives us the proper perspective on these two very important aspects of the Christian life.

Holding grudges is not advantageous to anyone.  It is not something that ever leads to healing.  In fact, holding on to grudges leads to one of the most ill-advised attitudes in the Word- bitterness.  A famous comedian once said that he never carries a grudge because while he is carrying a grudge against someone, “they are out dancing.”  This is so true.  The weight of the grudge is carried mainly on the shoulders of one.  Often the grudge-holder is the only one who knows a grudge is being held.  At other times, the grudge-holder is the only one who cares that a grudge is being held.  More often than not, the grudge-holder loses more sleep, energy, and health than the one against whom the grudge is being held.  Yet, with all these thing in mind, we still hold grudges and still get bitter, to our own detriment.

No matter how much we nurse a grudge, it will never get better.  Nursing it makes it worse.  We have a multitude of excuses to keep it going but few reasons.  The Word instructs us to, “Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander, along with all malice.” (Ephesians 4:31)  Why?  Because it is a useless endeavor.  James says,  “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? (James 4:1)  Our inside battles result in outside ones.  When we war within ourselves because we allow bitterness against others to grow, we cannot grow ourselves.  Bitterness is a weed that chokes out the good growth within us.

When Leonardo DaVinci painted the last supper he decided to get back at an enemy by making his face the one of Judas.  The last face he had to paint was Jesus, but he could not get it right.  After laboring for weeks, in desperation he went back and changed the face of Judas to someone he did not know.  It was only then he was able to paint the face of Jesus.  Our bitterness against others will keep us from seeing the face of Jesus.  Not surprisingly, while DaVinci labored over the painting, his enemy was totally oblivious to the battle DaVinci was having.  Who then was suffering?  So it is with our grudges. So it is with our bitterness.  DaVinci needed to heed the verses in Hebrews, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.” (Hebrews 12:14,15)  We should not let our hate of others keep us from experiencing the love of the Lord.

There is no doubt that bitterness and grudges are heavy loads to carry.  In days past, armies had to carry their cannonballs around with them just in case they came across an enemy.  It made the travel difficult and cumbersome.  However, they felt it necessary to have the cannonballs “just in case.”  The enemy, which was traveling much more light, was often oblivious to the load the other army was carrying.  One army was burdened and slow, the other was unencumbered and fast.  Often when the armies did meet, fatigue of carrying a load made combat difficult and the cannonball-wielding army would lose. So it is with us.  The fatigue of carrying grudges just so we can be on the offensive if the opportunity might arise makes us so weak that we have little strength for anything else.  The other person, often not even knowing we are carrying a grudge, has been traveling through life lightly and is strong while we are frail- eaten away by our own bitterness.

So does forgiveness mean the same thing as reconciliation.  To forgive must we reconcile?  I don’t think those two things are the same things.  “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)  What God is addressing here is what we are responsible for and what God is responsible for.  We are not God and we cannot be the judge and jury in His stead.  Forgiveness takes only our partnership with God, reconciliation must include another willing party.  That is important to understand.  Just because we have not reconciled with someone does not mean we have not forgiven. But be aware.  Forgiveness as God expresses it, is something deep, something real.  We cannot just say we forgive, we must really forgive. If we cannot be reconciled to another, we must be sure that our forgiveness is complete.  If not, we might think the lack of reconciliation is the other person’s fault when it is really our own attitude standing in the way!

It is important to note that forgiveness of an act is not necessarily acceptance of that act. If we forgive someone for what he or she has done, we are not condoning the behavior.  Forgiveness is for us.  It lifts from us a burden that would otherwise weigh us down.  The other person might not even care if we do not forgive. They may see their act as justified, no matter how wrong it is.  We cannot change other’s attitudes or actions if they do not want to change.  What forgiveness does is takes away another’s control over us.  It eliminates the knot in our stomach or ache in our head every time we cross their path.  Forgiveness does not necessarily put us in right relationship with the other person, but with God.  By having a right relationship with God, we now have power to put bitterness where it should be- not just buried, but destroyed.

Often times we hold our grudges because we think it is our responsibility to see justice done or at the least, let others know what they have done wrong or at least how much they have hurt us.  But that is a burden we cannot take upon ourselves.  Our chances, as the offended, of causing remorse in the offender, is pretty slim.  More often than not God will have to bring a third party or circumstance into the other person’s life to make any changes.  Our ability to change others is pretty limited and to change others who have offended us is even more difficult.  Usually the only thing we will achieve, will be changing ourselves into unhealthy, bitter, people.

Forgiveness is the condition of our hearts.  Reconciliation is the condition of a relationship.  Our heart condition involves us alone.  Reconciliation involves at least two people.  Any effort that involves more than one person takes some level of cooperation.  Reconciliation takes a right heart from all parties.  Forgiveness frees our hearts, but does not guarantee the heart condition of another.  True reconciliation necessitates a trustworthiness of everyone involved or it will eventually come apart.

When Elizabeth Barrett Browning married Robert Browning her tyrannical father disowned her.  For years Elizabeth never gave up on the relationship and every week wrote letters to her parents.  She never received a reply.  After ten years she received a box with every one of her letters, unopened.  Today those letters are some of the most beautiful writings in English literature.  Had her parents read them maybe their relationship could have been healed.  But the truth is, not even the most beautiful words in English literature can reconcile a heart that is hardened.  Elizabeth Browning had forgiven her father because forgiveness was up to her.  Elizabeth Browning was not reconciled with her father because reconciliation was up to both of them.

So there is a difference between reconciliation and forgiveness. On the cross, Jesus provided for the forgiveness of everyone. But not everyone will be reconciled with Him.  Forgiveness is extended because of who Jesus is, and if reconciliation with Him does not take place, it is because of who we are.   Some of us reject reconciliation with the risen Christ, even though He has done His part.  Christ did not wait for our move for reconciliation before he forgave us.  In the same way, we should not withhold forgiveness waiting for someone to seek reconciliation with us.

The writer of Hebrews tells us, “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.” (Hebrews 12:15)  Instead of sowing bitterness, we should prepare the ground with forgiveness in the hope that someday reconciliation will grow.  We are told to forgive, “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive,” (Colossians 3:13) so that reconciliation might be possible,  “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18)  Forgiveness on our part might take place without reconciliation, but reconciliation cannot take place without forgiveness.  Take off the heavy pack of unforgiveness and see how much easier it is to travel without it.

“Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 Continue reading

“Repent of your wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive your evil thoughts,” (Acts 8:22)

There is much said on guilt by psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, ministers, hairdressers, and even bartenders.  They have all heard their share of guilt stories and most of the time guilt is looked upon as a bad thing.  A quick google search will reveal a lot more information about the destructiveness of guilt than its value.  Guilt is almost always looked at as a negative, but if we look at guilt as a negative, it is easy to miss positives that true guilt can play in our lives.

The dictionary calls guilt “the act or state of having done a wrong or committed an offense.”  This is pretty straight forward.  Guilt is an indicator something going wrong. It is the negative feeling that accompanies a negative behavior.  Guilt in itself is not wrong.  It is the warning light on the dash board of our car.  In society today, we are basically told to cover up that light.  We are told it is wrong to feel guilty and so we are told, in essence, to deal with the symptoms of guilt rather than the causes the guilt.

Guilt originated in the garden.  Adam and Eve ate of the one thing that was forbidden and they hid.  They were not experiencing some sort of false guilt planted by Satan.  They were facing the real feelings of guilt after the real trespass of God’s commands.  After they presented themselves to God, God did not tell them to wipe out those evil guilt feelings from their mind.  He was not angry for their guilty feelings, but for their rebellious actions.  Guilt was not the wrong.  It was an indicator of wrong.  Because of the trespasses in the garden we know that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)  So sin is with us always, regardless of the message the world tries to give.

Later in the New Testament, Jesus used the hypocrisy of men to save an adulterous woman from stoning.  After all the would-be “stoners” walked away, Jesus did not tell the woman to go and not feel guilty any longer because she had a reason to feel guilty.  He asked her who was there to condemn her.  “She replied, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘I do not condemn you either. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.'” (John 8:31)   He told her to go and sin no more. He did not deal with the symptom of sin, but the act of sin.  He told her to stop the action that led to guilt.  To often today we stir real guilt and false guilt in the same pot and make the feelings the same.  The consequence of this is a lot of people not dealing with root causes of their sinfulness.  John tells us in 1 John 2:1 “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”  We need to deal with the sin, not just the feelings of sin.

I have told the story many times about the man who would just walk up and hit people for no reason.  He felt terribly guilty about it and went to therapy.  After months of therapy, he finally felt cured and shared his relief with a friend.  “I still  hit people for no reason, but I don’t I don’t feel guilty any more.”  A humorous story, but all too true today.  We are told not to feel guilty about acts that we should feel guilty about. If we remove the guilt, we will not deal with the acts.  Guilt is often the vehicle that transports us to a place of healing so we should not ignore it.

Down deep we know when we are guilty, and we don’t want to face reality, so dealing with the surface feelings becomes much easier than dealing with the deeper truths.  Two men were on trial for armed robbery. An eyewitness took the stand, and the prosecutor slowly moved to what would be his climatic conclusion of questioning. “So, you say you were at the scene when the robbery took place?”

“Yes,” the witness answered.

“And you saw a vehicle leave at a high rate of speed?”

“Yes,” the witness answered again.

“And did you observe the occupants?”

“Yes, two men.”

“And,” the prosecutor boomed, “are those two men present in court today?” He turned and faced the defendants.  At this point the two defendants sealed their fate. They raised their hands.  We know when we are guilty, we often just need to come clean.

If we would just test our guilt feelings, we would realize that many of them have a legitimate basis.  There was an NFL player back in the day who had terrible pain in his knees.  He would just have them shot up with pain killers and play the games anyway.  After years of doing this, he retired and his knees were beyond repair.  He was virtually a cripple.  The pain in his knees was an indicator that there was something wrong that needed to be dealt with.  Covering up the pain was like us covering up our guilt; it keeps us from dealing with the root problem and it will just continue to get worse.  Soon it will cripple us.  Guilt is often a warning sign, flashing away, letting us know there is a malfunction and we must take the time to look at problem and deal with it.

As is the way of the world, everything is topsy-turvy.  Legitimate guilt is made to seem false, and false guilt is made to seem legitimate.  We are told we shouldn’t feel guilty about acts of sin, but we should feel guilty about acts of righteousness.  We are told that any guilt we might carry inside our hearts by being separated from our savior is illegitimate.  But we are also told that if we shake the forbidden fruit from the tree and eat, we should shake off the guilty feelings that will follow.  There is only one way to shake off the guilt and Dr. Luke tells us how in Acts, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19)  You notice he doesn’t say, “just don’t feel bad anymore.”  That just doesn’t work.

There is a lot more authentic and necessary guilt out there that are signposts pointing to disaster than there are bouts of false guilt.  We must not fear guilt any more than we fear the burglar alarm going off on the back porch.  We should not fear the alarm, but the burglar. We should not fear the guilty feelings but the actions that set them off.  Of course, there is such a thing as false guilt and the key is how do we distinguish between good guilt and bad guilt.  Next week I will get into how we tell the difference. Until then have a great week…