Guilt and Love
Most people, even really devoted people, recognize that their spiritual life could be improved. I suspect that very few of us would say there is nothing we could or should change. I can't think of anyone I know who would say he or she has a perfect spiritual life. Some of us may be very disciplined, but lack passion. Others may be very passionate, but suffer from a sort of hit and miss approach to our relationship with God.
Yet our spiritual vitality really depends on the quality of our relationship with God. To have a really vibrant, meaningful spiritual life, we need to have a vibrant meaningful relationship with God and in our busy world that can be a challenge.
I hope you don’t think I’m going to try to make you feel guilty. (Though, I’m not surprised by that reaction.) I want to show you that guilt as a motivational tool is self-defeating. Parents often use guilt as a tool to shape the behaviour of their children. I suspect that most of us have been made to feel guilty at least once and it may have even made a difference in our behaviour, or at least in the way we relate to the person who is laying the guilt trip on us.
When I was a child, corporal punishment was not only culturally acceptable but considered necessary. Yet, I have only vague recollections of a couple of spankings. However, I have very strong memories of my mother looking at me and saying, "Ronnie, I am really disappointed in you." When she said that, I just wanted to say: "Beat me please! It would feel so much better if you just hit me. Please don't tell me that I have disappointed my mother." My mother was a wonderful person. I wouldn't trade her for any other mother I've ever met, but she knew how to use guilt.
Feelings of guilt usually mean that we have fallen short in some area of performance. We're just not cutting it in one area or other. When we think we're not performing up to standard, feelings of guilt start to build up. Eventually, they get so strong that they push us to make some changes to improve our performance. As our performance improves, the feeling of guilt starts going down because after all we are doing a little better. The more improvements we make, the better we feel about ourselves. Eventually, we are doing such a great job that we have no feelings of guilt at all. We think "I am doing great. Terrific! I have met my goal. I am doing well."
We cruise along at that level for a while and then, because of the law of entropy, our performance starts to slip a bit. Little by little, it slides down until it bottoms out again.
Meanwhile as our performance is declining our level of guilt is sneaking back up. If you think of guilt and performance as two sine waves, they are completely out of phase. In other words, when performance is low, guilt is high. When performance is high, guilt is low. A lot of us get caught in this kind of a cycle. Ultimately there is no real improvement. If you were to plot your spiritual progress on a graph, there would be lots of action, but no real development.
Picture yourself going up a long flight of stairs. Instead of guilt and performance, we're thinking about love and performance - one foot for each. At the bottom of the stairs, your performance foot is flat on the floor. As your appreciation of and love for God increases, your love foot gets to the first step. At that point, this new level of love causes you to work on your performance. You apply a little self discipline, but only because it pleases the one you love and that takes no effort at all. As you work on that, you find your love for God increasing - your love foot moves up to the next step. When that happens, your performance foot soon catches up. Step by step you move upward, ever improving.
There is really no comparison between guilt and love as motivators. Guilt keeps you trapped. Love moves you forward. One of the classic passages on this is Luke 10, the account of Mary and Martha. It has something to teach us about guilt and love. Let's read Luke 10:38-42 "Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, 'Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.' And Jesus answered and said to her, 'Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.'"
All the "Marthas" are going to say, "Ya, but somebody has to do the work. It's okay to commend Mary for sitting at Jesus feet all the time but somebody has got to make lunch, somebody has to clean the floor, somebody has to do the work." I don't want to get into a debate about the necessity of doing everyday work of any sort. Obviously we need some balance and if you look through the Scriptures you'll see that we are expected to take care of what God has given us. There's a stewardship factor. We need to be good stewards of our physical resources and we don't want to abuse them. What's more Jesus, Himself, took care of the individual personal needs of many in healing, liberating and feeding those who needed His help.
What matters here is the emphasis that Mary and Martha displayed. I suggest to you that Mary's emphasis was on intimacy. Some of us find this a little more natural than others. Mary desired to be with the Lord, just to sit at His feet and listen to Him. Martha's emphasis was on service. That is not to say she had no appreciation for the Lord. Clearly she did. After all, she had invited Him into her home for a meal. I like it when people invite me to their home for a meal. I feel loved and appreciated when they do that.
So these two women exemplify two emphases - intimacy and service. Now here's an observation: Intimacy with God leads to an increased desire for service. The more you get to know God as a person the more motivated you are to be part of the accomplishment of His purposes. You want to work for Him - not because you have to, but because you love Him so much and you want to please Him. When we have an emphasis on intimacy it can grow into healthy service.
However, when we have an emphasis on service what happens, all too frequently, is that it leads to not a desire for intimacy, but it leads to bitterness and burn out. Notice the words of Martha, "Lord don't you know that my sister has left me to serve alone, do something about that woman." This is not a heart at peace. This is somebody who, as Jesus said, is "troubled."
It comes back to this: as our appreciation for God grows - as we learn to become more intimate with Him - our desire to serve will grow. However, if we are focussed on the tasks, then the harder we work the more weary and resentful of others we become, particularly of those who seem to be enjoying a level of intimacy we cannot reach through our labours.
So, as we think about making time for God, I want to underscore that it is not helpful to be motivated by guilt and a sense of obligation. This may give the appearance of spiritual growth, but it is more likely to degenerate into a cycle which produces no long-term positive results. Love and intimacy, on the other hand, do produce long-term positive results. We may not look as busy as those who are caught up in serving for its own sake, but our lives will be richer.
Ron Hughes
© March 2006
