This Week's Conversatio Morum
26 July 2010
Guilt
By Ronald W. Nikkel
Why do I feel guilty when I buy a new car to replace my aging Toyota? Why do I feel guilty when I write letters saying “No” to needy ex prisoners in Africa who have written asking for help? Why do I feel guilty about the fact that Deepak my fellow laborer in India can't provide for his child the way he feels a father should, when I without children live in a house of eight rooms? Why do I feel guilty sipping a glass of Chilean wine whilst peasant mothers in the Slums of Pudahuel scrounge in heaps of garbage for the family meal? What is guilt?
It always bothers me, but then what difference does it make? My lifestyle doesn’t change. For some completely inexplicable reason God put me into the camp of the wealthy in this world. Sometimes I shudder at the other possibilities, realizing that I have done nothing to merit His incredible material blessing. The question is always there - why did God choose to bless me when He could just as easily have made me the daughter of an unemployed fisherman in Labrador? I can't answer that question, and it probably doesn't matter anyhow. The real question is not why but for what purpose.
The two simple answers are that God put me in the midst of plenty and freedom so that I would have the wherewithal to reach beyond the boundaries of my own circumstance to minister to others; and that God placed me in the midst of plenty as His steward to manage His resources for the benefit of others.
That’s why I feel guilty. There is something inside me that enjoys the blessings of God far too much. It is easy to live as if I am the proprietor of that which God has given me, instead of being His steward. I’m a good proprietor. I don’t spend money unwisely, I invest it shrewdly, and I share it judiciously. But did God call me to be a proprietor or a steward?
Proprietors are their own bosses they are self employed in businesses of their own. Stewards are responsible to someone else who is the boss. By nature I’m more comfortable being a proprietor and since God gave no explicit instructions on how to handle all “the goods,” I treat them as my own responsibility. But I still feel guilty!
There is a kind of ache within me every time I spend money. I almost always see the outstretched hands of needy people and wonder what I’d do if those outstretched hands were mine. What if I were needy, would I want to meet a proprietor or a steward?
I have no answer but I’m struggling. Sometimes I try to feel less guilty, at other times I try to be more giving, God is using guilt to make me uncomfortable in using His resources to help myself. What would I do if Jesus said to me “sell everything you have, give your money to the needy and come follow me”? Would I try to convince Him that I could follow Him on another path? What would I do if Jesus said to me “the foxes have holes, the birds have nests but I have nowhere to lay my head come follow me”? Would I say “Lord that’s not practical you can’t be effective if you don’t look after your own needs”?
Why is it so easy to ignore guilt?
*Originally published as a "Monday Memo" 15 September 1986
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