Over coming guilt day two

Guilt has devastated the lives of so many people. It will wrap it's way around your heart like a poisenous vine. We do not have to yield to guilt. Some may think that guilt is the only thing that keeps people from doing things that are bad. That is incorrect thinking. Often people will use guilt against you like a weapon. Manipulative people will use guilt as way to get into your heart, to control you, to get you to comply with what they want. How do they do that? They will ask you to do something and if you refuse they will play the 'oh you disappointed me severely card' How many times have we went against our better judgement and did what someone else was asking us to do only to regret it later because they laid a guilt trip on us?

We have to begin seeing that guilt is not a friend, but an enemy of our soul. When we use guilt to try to manipulate the behavior of others we are destroying that person. Often a parent will use guilt to try to keep their kids in line. Using guilt in that fashion will slowly destroy the child and prep them for a life of self defeat. When one of your kids doesn't want to do what you ask them to do and you use guilt to get your way you are opening the way for others to do the same thing to them. Once they have been trained to receive guilt and act upon it they will bend to the desires of anyone that they really wish to please. If mom and dad trains a child to respond to guilt by heaping guilt trips on them, the child is more likely to go along with other's that want to do things that will get them into trouble. They feel guilt if they don't please them and respond to their inner feelings of guilt by going against their better judgement.

Guilt is not a productive attribute, it is destructive. Since it is destructive in nature why do people use it on others? Maybe they do so because they see it as a good way to control other people. Often husband and wife will use guilt as a weapon against one another. Some relationships are all about I lay a guilt trip on you, then you return the favor and lay one on me. There is a better way. The better way is one partner giving and the other partner giving too. I know that there is at least one person reading this who has constantly used guilt on your spouse. You may feel as if laying guilt trips on your partner is the only way to get them to respond because they are unreasonable and stubborn. There is a better way.

Look at the relationship that Esther in the Bible had with her spouse, the King. The reason she was his current spouse was that he had his previous wife killed when she failed to comply to a very unreasonable command. The King would have definitely been one of the most self centered unreasonable people to have for a spouse. Yet, Esther got what she wanted. She fasted. She dressed to the hilt. She went before the King and then she said I want to give you something, come to a dinner I prepared for you. She got everything she wanted. No matter how stubborn someone may be, giving is the true way to some one's heart, not laying on a guilt trip. Often people want to use a guilt trip to control others instead of putting the kind of effort into it that Esther showed because it is easier just to lay on a guilt trip. It can be easier to just lay on a guilt trip to get your way, but in the long run it doesn't produce good fruit. Life isn't just about actions, it is about the heart. It really isn't much of a victory if people do what we want but they despise it the whole time.

If you recognize that you are using guilt to try to get your loved ones to do what they should do maybe there is a better way. You are likely not to find anything easier than using a guilt trip, but, with effort you can find something that is more pleasant for everyone. It is your family aren't they worth the effort. Look at all the time and effort that Esther put into changing the heart and the mind of the King. What Esther did was hard work, if you don't think so, just try what she did sometime. It may have been hard work, but she actually CHANGED the Kings heart, she didn't just get him to grudgingly comply. In the end the King loved Esther all the more for her actions. In the end wouldn't we all want that from our loved ones as well.