Getting off the Guilt Trip--A "God at Work" Story

I’ve been battling guilt today—again! Why? I have a ton of work today before leaving town next week and my 8-year-old is clearly bored out of his mind. He spent much of yesterday entertaining himself while I finished a project that was due and I wish he didn’t have to do it again today.

Of course if I took half the day off to play I would feel guilty for not working. That’s what I do—I feel guilty when I work too much and guilty when I step away. If I work I’m ignoring my family; if I don’t I’m neglecting my responsibility.

Lately God has really been on me about this whole guilt thing. He has been sending me messages through other people who catch on right away when I start tripping myself up with guilt. He has made three things clear:

1) All this condemnation is coming from someone other than Him and I need to stop buying into his lies.
2) Giving into guilt is my fallback position and I need to develop a new one.
3) All this pattern does is, make it easier for those who want to place blame on me. They would rather not take responsibility and know I’ll take it on without a fight. How convenient.

I’d include a story about how God helped me overcome my struggle with guilt but that will have to wait until I actually have a good success story to share. I guess for today the success story is that I recognize how destructive and fruitless this habit really is (and I do believe it has become a habit). I’m sick of it and being sick of something is a great first step toward change!