How to Get Rid of Guilt

People do dumb things. That's a reality you don't have to look hard to confirm.

In your life, you will hurt people, and people will hurt you. There has only been one perfect person who ever lived, and it isn't you, and it certainly isn't me. So, if you don't learn how to forgive, you end up with two options. You absorb the hurt and stay miserable. Or you sever the relationship, hoping that fixes things, only to discover that even a severed relationship without forgiveness still leaves you miserable.

You have to learn to forgive. But the flip side is just as true. You also have to learn to receive forgiveness. And that turns out to be hard for at least two reasons.

First, because forgiving others is so difficult, we naturally suspect that anyone offering us forgiveness can't really mean it. We receive grace with one eye half-closed, waiting for the catch.

Second, when you hurt someone, the automatic byproduct is guilt. And guilt is one of the hardest things in the world to shake.

What We Do With Guilt

Nobody likes feeling guilty, so most of us try to get rid of it. There are two strategies that almost everyone defaults to, and both fall apart under any real weight.

The first strategy is balance. Do enough good stuff to outweigh the bad stuff. It sounds reasonable until you try to apply it. You lied to your friend. How much good behaviour cancels that out? You lashed out at your spouse. What's the appropriate amount of penance? What about pride, betrayal, or the thing you've never told anyone? There's no exchange rate that works.

The second strategy is denial. Much of contemporary culture is shaped by the idea that there's no objective moral truth binding people together, only personal preference. So, if you feel guilty, the guilt itself is the problem, not the action that caused it. Just deny that anything is wrong, and the feeling has nowhere to land.

The trouble is, both strategies require constant maintenance, and neither does the thing it promises. The guilt keeps coming back.

Maybe you live with that. Maybe you've never felt good enough or clean enough. Not for the people in your life, not for the church, not for God. Maybe you've prayed prayers asking God to forgive you and walked away wondering whether anything actually happened, because you don't feel forgiven.

I want to take you to one of the most honest passages in Scripture for people in that exact place.

David's Year of Hiding

The story behind Psalm 51 represents the lowest point in David's life. He's remembered as the greatest king of Israel, a man after God's own heart. But here's how the Bible eventually summarizes his legacy:

"For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not failed to keep any of the Lord's commands all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite." (1 Kings 15:5)

Maybe you have an exception like that. You've generally lived a decent life, but there's one thing that haunts you. Or maybe you have so many exceptions you've stopped counting, and you're convinced even a perfect rest of your life couldn't make up for them.

The Uriah story starts with a single line that's easy to miss:

"In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem." (2 Samuel 11:1)

In ancient Israel, kings went to war in the spring. David was a king. David didn't go out to war. He wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Did he check out?

So much of the guilt in our lives starts the same way. The decisions we regret tend to happen when our guards are down. In the late evenings. In draining seasons. In the moments when we're not paying attention. Genesis says it like this: "Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it" (Genesis 4:7). When you check out, sin doesn't.

In David's case, sin wasn't crouching at the door. It was walking on the rooftop.

"One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her." (2 Samuel 11:2-3)

He sleeps with Bathsheba. She's married to Uriah, one of David's most loyal soldiers, who's away fighting the war David should have been at. She gets pregnant. To cover it up, David pulls Uriah off the battlefield, hoping he'll sleep with his wife, and the timing of the baby will be plausible. Uriah refuses to enjoy his bed while his fellow soldiers are still in the field. So David sends him back to the front lines with orders that guarantee he'll be killed. Then David marries Bathsheba quickly, ties up the loose ends, and life goes on.

Except life doesn't really go on. Because sin can't actually be hidden, at least not forever. Jesus said it plainly: "There is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open" (Luke 8:17).

For nearly a year, David has carried this. A year of replaying it every night. A year of wondering when he'll be caught. A year of pretending in front of his court, his servants, and the God he serves.

Then the prophet Nathan walks in, tells David a story about a rich man stealing a poor man's only lamb, and watches David explode with righteous anger at the injustice of it. And in one of the most devastating sentences in the Bible, Nathan says, "You are the man" (2 Samuel 12:7).

David has nowhere left to hide. And it's the best thing that's ever happened to him.

What David Does Next

Psalm 51 is what David writes in response.

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." (Psalm 51:1-2)

Pay attention to what he doesn't do. He doesn't make a case for himself. He doesn't remind God that he's been a good king. He doesn't pretend it didn't happen.

He throws himself at God's mercy.

And notice the basis of his appeal. He doesn't ask for mercy because of his accomplishments or his position. He asks for it on the grounds of God's character. Your unfailing love. Your great compassion. The plea isn't built on what David has done. It's built on who God is.

Jesus tells a story that lands in exactly the same place. Two men go to the temple to pray. One is a religious leader who lists all his good deeds and thanks God he's not like other people. The other is a tax collector, despised by everyone, who can't even lift his eyes. He just beats his chest and says, "God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner." Jesus says it's the second man, not the first, who walks home justified before God (Luke 18:10-14).

Why? Because he didn't try to justify himself. He owned what was true and threw himself on the mercy of God.

The gospel isn't good news until you've heard the bad news. The bad news is that you're a sinner, and you can't repay your sin with good deeds. Most religious frameworks in the world operate on the same basic principle: do enough good, follow the right path, accumulate enough merit, and eventually you'll be acceptable. Christianity is radically different. It isn't us climbing toward God. It's God reaching down to us.

What Mercy Actually Looks Like

When David asks for mercy, he uses some specific language. He asks God to blot out his transgressions. The Hebrew word means to wipe out completely, to annihilate. He's not asking God to cover his sin. He already tried that himself, and it didn't work. He's asking God to remove it.

A few verses later he says, "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow" (Psalm 51:7). And later still, "Create in me a pure heart, O God" (Psalm 51:10). David wants his slate wiped clean. He wants what we all want. Freedom. A clean record. The chance to start again.

The problem is that David couldn't make that happen for himself. Neither can we.

Psalm 51 is what scholars call a Messianic psalm, meaning it points forward to a coming Messiah. David didn't fully understand it, but on this side of the cross, we can see it clearly. The system of animal sacrifice that David knew was always pointing to something greater. The book of Hebrews puts it bluntly: "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). Of course it is. How could an imperfect animal substitute for the wrong of an image-bearer of God?

There has only been one perfect person who ever lived. The New Testament says of Jesus, "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth" (1 Peter 2:22). And again, "We have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin" (Hebrews 4:15).

Here's the heart of the gospel:

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood, to be received by faith." (Romans 3:23-25)

We all want two things at once. Justice for everyone else, and mercy for ourselves. We want the people who hurt us to get what they deserve, and we want our own slate wiped clean. The cross is the only place in the universe where both happen completely. Not 50 percent justice and 50 percent mercy. One hundred percent justice and one hundred percent mercy, simultaneously.

David's sin was placed on Jesus and paid for by Jesus. And so was yours.

You might be thinking, "That isn't fair." You're right. It isn't. David wasn't pleading for fairness. He was pleading for mercy. In Christ, he received it. So can you.

The Way Out

The bad news is that your sin is real, your guilt is real, and there's nothing you can do about it.

The good news is that God's mercy is real, freedom is real, and God has already done something about it.

If you're carrying a guilty conscience, if there's something you've been hiding for a year or ten years or your whole life, you don't have to atone for it yourself. You don't have to deny it exists. You don't have to balance it out with good deeds.

You can do what David did. Throw yourself on God's mercy. Stop trying to justify yourself and let Jesus justify you before God.

If that's where you are today, pray Psalm 51. Read it slowly. Make it your own.

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin... Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me... Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." (Psalm 51:1-2, 10, 12)

That prayer has been answered for everyone who has ever prayed it in faith. It will be answered for you, too.