Guilt starts with not doing good
We think guilt begins when we do something "wrong." Guilt actually begins when we fail to do something right.
1. It is in my power to do good, but I fail to do it.
2. I start to make excuses. Delayed obedience is disobedience.
3. In order to self-justify my failure to do good, I imagine offenses my neighbor has made against me. He is simply "living securely beside me," but I begin to "devise harm."
4. Now that I am imagining harm against him, I seek out further self-justification. Applying the "law" to him I find a basis to put blame and judgment on him and take him "to court" in some form. He may have actually broken some obscure law, but he had "done me no harm."
5. Now I have stepped up my guilt another notch by contending; I will now justify preemptive action. I look at those who simply "take what they want" without the hindrances of conscience (apparently) and wish I could be like them, "envying a man of violence."
6. My own crookedness has now cut me off completely from God. It is said, the devious are an abomination to the Lord, but he is intimate with the upright. The curious thing about Proverbs is that it can be stated the other way round: the crooked despise the Lord (the standard of what is right), but those who are themselves just find delight in being intimate with the perfection of justice.
7. I will tend to invest myself heavily in objects since I am cut off from the Lord. My house, my permanent dwelling, becomes a curse. Those whose delight is in God because they are free from guilt, hold onto things lightly: they live in tents, and the blessing of the Lord is there. Most notable of his blessings are the life-giving relationships only possible for those not poisoned with guilt.
1. It is in my power to do good, but I fail to do it.
2. I start to make excuses. Delayed obedience is disobedience.
3. In order to self-justify my failure to do good, I imagine offenses my neighbor has made against me. He is simply "living securely beside me," but I begin to "devise harm."
4. Now that I am imagining harm against him, I seek out further self-justification. Applying the "law" to him I find a basis to put blame and judgment on him and take him "to court" in some form. He may have actually broken some obscure law, but he had "done me no harm."
5. Now I have stepped up my guilt another notch by contending; I will now justify preemptive action. I look at those who simply "take what they want" without the hindrances of conscience (apparently) and wish I could be like them, "envying a man of violence."
6. My own crookedness has now cut me off completely from God. It is said, the devious are an abomination to the Lord, but he is intimate with the upright. The curious thing about Proverbs is that it can be stated the other way round: the crooked despise the Lord (the standard of what is right), but those who are themselves just find delight in being intimate with the perfection of justice.
7. I will tend to invest myself heavily in objects since I am cut off from the Lord. My house, my permanent dwelling, becomes a curse. Those whose delight is in God because they are free from guilt, hold onto things lightly: they live in tents, and the blessing of the Lord is there. Most notable of his blessings are the life-giving relationships only possible for those not poisoned with guilt.
