“Whenever our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures, we know that God is much greater and more merciful than our conscience, and he knows everything there is to know about us.”  (I John 3: 20, the Passion Translation)

Our conscience can be our guide and it can also cause us a lot of grief and despair. When we feel we have made a mistake in judgment or that we have failed in some endeavor or relationship or pursuit, it is easy to beat ourselves up. We may mentally return to these experiences and continue to ruminate about them and feel guilt.

Let’s recognize that a conscience that brings us ongoing agony is not going to be so helpful to us. It is certainly good to be awake to behaviors and thoughts that need correcting and to seek reformation, but to feel ongoing guilt or shame is not healing for us and for others, nor does it obey God’s law of Love.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our motives and our goodness. He knows the idea that He designed, a child of His Love, not one for which He is ashamed. God’s mercy tenderly sees who we are and the true possibilities for our lives. God isn’t toting up marks against us to punish us. We are doing this to ourselves.

Let’s yield to God’s thoughts about us, His Love toward us, and receive the refreshing, the restored innocence that He is always ready to bestow on us. When we do this, we step out of self-centered despair and into a life of living and giving.

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