“Guilt is the past; worry is the future and they both rob you of today.” That is one of my favorite mantras. For me, it is a great reminder to stay in the present. If we are feeling guilty, we are most likely thinking about whatever mistakes we may have made in the past. We spend our time thinking about actions we regret and lamenting about how those mistakes affected us or people we love. If we are worrying, then we are most likely projecting into the future, thinking about the myriad calamities that can occur. It is as if we believe that, in thinking about every possible contingency, we can somehow control the outcome. Guilt and worry do nothing more than keep us trapped inside our heads and away from our present lives.
Guilt is such a waste of emotion. I am not saying that we should have no conscience or that we should feel no remorse if we have hurt others, but guilt becomes problematic when we inappropriately punish ourselves because of something we did in the past. What a precious waste of time that is. If you have learned from your mistake and you have made efforts not to repeat the behavior, then it is time to forgive yourself and let it go. The Bible reminds us of this quite frequently. For example, it says in Isaiah 43:18, “stop dwelling on past events and brooding over times gone by.” In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul is a tremendous example of how we should let go of the past and focus on our present goals. He of all people should have understood this since he was completely transformed by God. When he said, “but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” (Philippians 3:13), he was reminding us that the past can keep us stuck. In order to press forward and achieve our goals, we need to let the past go and fix our eyes on the present.
Worry is also a waste of time and energy. Corrie tem Boom said, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” Worry sucks the very life out of you because it creates such intense feelings of fear and anxiety. Think about what you are doing when you spend so much time in your head projecting into a future that has not yet occurred and a future over which you really have no control. Not only are you imprisoning yourself, as you are locked within your mind’s eye, but you are causing yourself harm. You cause yourself to think of the very worst case scenarios and then your body viscerally goes through the emotions as if the terrible event is already occurring. I find that very often, what actually occurs is never as bad as what we imagine. Again, this is such a precious waste of time. In Luke 12:25, this question is posed, “Can any of you by worrying add an hour to his life?” If anything, worrying only subtracts from our lives and adds nothing good.
I have learned from working in oncology the absolute necessity for people to master crawling out of their heads and staying in the present. Cancer patients have every reason to project and worry. As they are faced with their mortality, they naturally reflect upon their lives and often find themselves feeling tremendous guilt and regret over past mistakes or missed opportunities. To me, this is so very sad, because they are ruining their present and wasting the time they have left to spend with those whom they love. Even in the midst of darkness, joy can be found and life is still worth living, but how can one live it while shackled to the past or stuck in a never ending haze of catastrophe? I leave you now with this encouragement, “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). God bless!
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