Today's Passage: Genesis 44

One of the things I have always prayed about in ministry has been those moments when people open up to you. There are times when people are wrestling with things that have made them feel beaten and defeated for far too long. When they come to others for help it is usually after they have tried to handle it on their own and have found that whatever they are dealing with is simply too big for one person to handle.

We can hold on to things...for a long time. I have counseled with people that have been steam-rolled by guilt for something that happened years, even decades ago. The baby they chose to not carry to term, the relationship they chose to fracture instead of mend, the affair, drugs, and the list could go on forever. If we are not careful we can let guilt ruin more years that the sin we committed in the past.

Judah reminds me of someone who is consumed with guilt. When he explains that his father will die if his youngest brother does not return home, he mentions that one brother is already dead. He does not realize that he is actually talking to the brother that he thinks is dead. Their father, Jacob, has been mourning and in a depressed state ever since he heard that Joseph was dead. Imagine seeing someone in pain. Pain that you caused, and seeing them in that pain day after day without confessing what you had done. Guilt was weighing pretty heavy on Judah.

Guilt is not always a bad thing. Sometimes God uses guilt to show us that something in our life needs to change. But at other times God may be more prone to forgive us that we are to forgive ourselves. The grace of God offers total and complete forgiveness. So if God offers forgiveness, and you ask for it, how can you look on yourself with guilt when God looks on you with redemption? How does it make God feel if he is willing to forgive us but we are not willing to forgive ourselves?

Ephesians 1:7 reads: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace." Our guilt is not match for the grace of God. So if there is anything in your life that is weighing you down, trade it in for a little grace.