I started carrying guilt around at a young age. In the seventh grade, I felt guilty for making the cheerleading squad when my friend didn’t. In high school, I couldn’t stop beating myself up for stealing. Now, as an adult, I encounter guilt for yelling at my kids, not spending enough time with my husband, and not having a handle on money. I hide it well, even from myself, and keep moving forward, but it’s always there nagging at me.

Guilt is not a part of God’s plan. It drains the life out of us and separates us from reality. Yet, we keep guilt around never looking to see how much it steals or controls. God wants more for us! He wants us to be free.

For one who has died has been set free from sin. – Romans 6:7

Guilt is a mental and emotional experience that occurs when a person thinks or realizes they have compromised their standards of conduct and accept responsibility. When we don’t give these experiences over to God, they can quickly turn into shame. Shame, in return, attacks our identity, causing us to feel unworthy or not good enough. Guilt and shame take us away from the heart of God.

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him – Psalm 103:10-11

Guilt is an emotion with no boundaries. We experience it for things we said/did, things we didn’t say/do, and things we think we said/did. We encounter food guilt, past guilt, and parenting guilt. We face it when we can’t live up to people’s expectations and when we don’t answer our parents’ phone calls. It touches every area of our lives.

Unafraid of the spotlight, guilt easily becomes an idol, pointing us away from Jesus and taking up space in our hearts meant for something or someone else. Fighting to escape, we repeatedly apologize, withdraw, pretend we don’t care, or justify our actions by declaring “I wouldn’t ____________ if they would just _______________.”

Guilt has no purpose, except causing us to stay the same, live in shame, and fall deeper into ourselves. We were not created to carry a suitcase of past, present, and future mistakes. God is a God of purpose. Over the next few days, I pray you learn to let God use your mistakes to move you into a deeper place with Him. A place where guilt no longer drives your life. What type of guilt are you battling? How is it affecting your everyday choices?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. – Galatians 6:9

Kylie is my oldest and dearest friend, and like so many of my friends, she frequently runs in marathon races. I am not sure if I am living vicariously through them, but I seem to have amassed many friends who love to run long distances. One thing I love about Kylie is the fact that she follows the same ritual in every marathon race she enters. As soon as the starting gun fires, she says aloud, “Kylie, all you have to do is finish.”

Throughout the race, she says this to herself at least one hundred times. She does not try to beat everyone, she does not compare her pace to the speed of everyone else in the race, she simply sets her own pace and runs her race. And most importantly, she wants to get to the finish line.

It’s such a great lesson for us all. If our goal is to be conformed and transformed into the image of Jesus, then becoming more like Jesus is our goal. Running our race, the way Jesus wants us to run our race, is our goal. Therefore, we’re not out to beat anyone else; we’re not out to be better than anyone else; we’re doing our best to be more like Jesus.

If we inadvertently get our eyes off the ultimate prize—Jesus—our eyes will fall on other things like people, status, and self-gratification, and we will get off balance and off track. If we take our eyes off the goal, we will quite possibly develop a mentality that things are not moving fast enough. That we’re not being rewarded or acknowledged soon enough. And we might even unintentionally uproot ourselves and walk out of our purpose.

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. – Acts 20:24

To be honest, during some of the greatest challenges of my life and hardest times of ministry—those times when I found myself thinking, Why am I doing this? and had twenty legitimate reasons to quit—I’ve had to get myself refocused on the ultimate goal of when and why God called me. That is what has sustained me in my darkest hours. It’s the why that helps me keep running when the how makes no sense.

Maybe this is where you’re wrestling today. Perhaps part of the answer is to refocus on your why. More of the answer could be to not get distracted with short-term things that will gratify our immediate wants, so we can finish our course and attain our prize. Let’s refocus our eyes and hearts and minds to be on Jesus. Let’s purpose to finish our course and the ministry we’ve received from Jesus, as Luke wrote, so we can testify to the gospel of God’s grace.

Prayer

Jesus, my purpose is to finish my course and the ministry I have received from You. Please help me reach this goal. Help me keep my eyes on You, the ultimate prize. In Your name, amen.

Continue Your Journey This reading plan was taken from You’re Not Finished Yet by Christine Caine. Read more at ChristineCaine.com/Devo

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:26

I love to run, though I’m totally not a serious runner. My idea of running is a five-mile slow jog, and when I say slow, I mean mothers pushing their babies in strollers can overtake me. My friend Dawn, the one I hike mountains with, is the real runner. She regularly competes in marathons and has built both the physical and mental endurance to go such distances. She’s run enough to know what it’s like to hit a wall while running, a concept I’ve never experienced because apparently I’ve never run far enough!

Hitting a wall is a place runners can overcome only with their minds. It’s more mental than physical, even when the physical is excruciating. Dawn once explained it to me by describing what happened in her first marathon. She was 23 miles in when she hit the infamous wall. She had 36 minutes to cover the remaining 3.2 miles. It would not have been an issue had she not already run for miles and didn’t have searing pain pounding in her left hip. As she tells it, the left side of her brain (the rational side) told her to stop and walk the rest of the way. Thoughts like, Don’t worry about meeting the goal. People will understand when they realize how hot it is and how badly I hurt, thundered in her head. But just as loud, the right side of her brain thundered back, There is still hope! The race isn’t over yet! It’s still possible to meet my goal. Don’t stop running!

Have you ever felt yourself in such a mental war? When your mind is screaming at you? In a race this happens when you hit a wall, when you have nothing left to give, when you’ve expended every ounce of energy and everything within you wants to quit. And yet, as Dawn experienced, somewhere deep inside, the flicker of a goal or dream begs to not be extinguished.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I’ve been in such a place, where I hit a wall spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. But at the same time, I had the Word of God in my heart and mind. I had God’s promises resounding in me at the same time my mind was screaming for me to stop. And because of His promises, that flicker of hope, I was able to keep going by focusing my mind on God and His Word. Despite how many times my mind fought me to quit, I kept redirecting my mind away from what it wanted to think and toward what God’s Word said was true.

Maybe you’re in such a place right now. What is your mind screaming at you? That it’s not possible? That it’s too late? That you’re not equipped? Not smart enough? Young enough? Old enough? Educated enough? You can win the war in your mind by renewing it with God’s words. You can endure by making God’s voice louder than any other voice in your head.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. – Romans 12:2

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. Help me be more acquainted with what it says so I can be transformed by the renewing of my mind, and so I can get through any wall. In Jesus’ name, amen.