Lessons Slowly Learned

I struggle a lot with guilt. I try my best not to rationalize my decisions or hide from their consequences, but I'm not always good at doing this in a healthy way. I obsess over trying to be better, trying to be the person I'm supposed to be. I get hung up on penitence, unwilling to forgive myself until I'm convinced that all blemishes of my wrong-doing have been rectified (an impossible task).

Not very long ago, I spent upwards of two years of my life feeling such a persistent and crushing guilt over my inability to do this sufficiently that it nearly broke me. Then, one day last summer, when everything was at its apex and I was feeling especially horrible and worthless, somebody I respected gave me a hug and told me that I was a good man. I felt true absolution for the first time in my life and spent the next 48 hours spontaneously coming close to tears as I dealt with what that meant:

I cannot make myself better. On my own, I am incapable of being good. The same holds for you. What we can do is this singular good thing: take our focus off of ourselves and let God's Grace take root. Through that Grace, we are allowed to do all manner of good, but it is not something that can come when our concern rests on ourselves. Freedom from guilt and from fear comes only from ignoring our pride and our insecurities and being servants to one another. That this is something we can do no matter how sinful and hideous we may feel, as I apparently did that day last summer, is a testament to God's goodness and Love.

Love, like Grace, is not something we earn. It is something we are allowed and given in spite of ourselves. It is utterly inhuman, embracing faults and failings, freeing us to move beyond them instead of demanding retribution or justification. We are free to give it because it has been given to us, but it is not something that we can seek. The very idea of seeking Love is absurd. The act requires us to be so focused on ourselves that we necessarily lose our fleeting sight of what Love is.

I forget all of this, though. I allow my insecurities and my guilt to get the best of me and restore my focus to myself and my wants. I consistently fall into the trap of thinking that salvation and redemption are about me. That whatever good God allows me is for my sake and my glory rather than to glorify Him and His plan. I return to the belief that my ultimate goal is to be able to do good without Grace instead of being more immediately receptive to it. Hypocritically, I think that even though I can somehow find the ability to love my friends, fallen and fallible as they are, I am incapable of being loved unless I am something approaching perfect.

When this happens to any of us, all we are capable of spreading is hurt. As such, I have realized that, next time I allow myself to be overly caught up in my own desires and insecurities and, in doing so, bring stress and pain on those close to me, I will not to turn it into an issue of my own inadequacy. I will, instead, use it as a reminder that I cannot be so important to myself. That it is only in properly Loving that I can recognize the Love that God and others have for me.