It is easy to joke that most of my traveling comes through guilt trips. Maybe it just comes easy because I’m a mistake maker. I certainly make enough mistakes to keep an apology ready for every occasion. I must say that the tour guide for the guilt trip and the sights seen on the guilt trip aren’t worth having. It is easy to feel guilty over every missed possibility. 

This weekend my wife and I took a more preferred type of trip, one to the beach. I saw a man leaning against a rail on the walk to the beach and greeted him. The same man was at the same place the next day, and a conversation started. Apparently the tour guide on this trip was the Holy Spirit. 

Somehow the conversation came around to a deep and profound pain in the man’s life. I listened. I accepted his view of the experience. I shared my understanding of pain and my respect for what he had and was currently experiencing. He had lost a child. I was able, as an outsider, to see the tremendous love he had given the child. I’ve had many students who did not know their parents loved them. This child knew and trusted. The beauty of his love and sacrifice were obvious to me. He had a hard time seeing the beauty for the pain he felt.

How can love be so necessary for life, health, and well-being when it is never completely pain free on planet Earth. You suffer when those you love suffer. All will die and leave loved ones behind to suffer. The daily sacrifices of selfishness required to love others is a constant type of pain and suffering, worthwhile, but painful. Learning to be self-less is never easy and never without some level of discomfort.

Now it is time for the conflict resolution. Should I feel guilty about leaving my wife on the beach while I talked to this man, or should I ignore this man’s needs to sit with my wife and feel guilty about that? There are so many ways I can turn this into a neurotic, anxiety attack. I can feel the guilt tour guide planning my itinerary. That is not what the Lord wants.

Guilt or no guilt is based on my understanding of any given situation. I am not God and do not clearly see all possibilitiies and implications of any decision, great or small. Feeling guilty means that I have decided to be in the position of God and have determined my mistake. Many times that means a no win situation because, like above, all possibilities and every choice is filled with the opportunity to be a mistake or be perceived as a mistake from my earth bound perspective. 

Jesus had to deal with the limitations of being in one place at one time with more opportunities than one person can accomplish. He dealt with it, and I have Him to lean on and be with. Jesus had purpose, vision, and an unrestricted relationship with God the Father. God the Father could and would cover all the additional distance Jesus in one place and one time couldn’t. I have a relationship with Jesus. I have to trust Him instead of buying tickets on the guilt train. That doesn’t mean that I will be right all the time, or even half the time, or even less. It means that I can trust God to do, correct, fix all that is beyond me because nothing is beyond Him. I can walk in the awareness of trust instead of the missing opportunity that breeds a guilt reflex.

I believe Jesus used that conversation at the sidewalk rail to teach two people to trust. He was teaching two people to be aware of Him and what He can do for limited people in hurtful life experiences. I shared the experience with my wife who was touched by it too. That is three for three that Jesus worked on. My wife saw me talking to the man and trusted the Lord was up to something. He doesn’t miss an opportunity.