The Ghost Ship of Guilt

The Ghost that Haunts

To know what you want truly is an elusive thing. Most of us float on the crests and valleys of what we think we want, but our true desires may remain just out of eyesight. Our motivations taunt us and can be unwilling to make themselves seen. One such of those motivations is guilt. Why do we do what we do? We may say we partake out of enjoyment, fulfillment, or satisfaction but deep down in the bilge of our hearts it’s the ghost of guilt that’s rattling its chains motivating us to take action.

Guilt comes at us from many angles. We didn’t live up to the expectations of others or even worse, the expectations for ourselves. We didn’t do what we said we would do. We quit taking action. We gave up. In the creaking of that old boat that’s made of unfulfilled promises, we sit with our face in our hands. Our eyes glaze over with numbness as they vacantly stare out at the open sea.

We’ve become a shell of the man we once were. We never achieved being the kind of man we envisioned ourselves to be. Does the bell of your inner monologue ring with words like, “Look at me. Who am I? What am I even doing?”

Guilt comes when we act on decisions we think will lead us to peaceful shore but in reality only further our drifting out into chaotic waters. We lose our bearings and thus become lost ourselves. Deep down we know that we are not who we are supposed to be. We are not doing what we ought to be doing. To make matters worse, there are often people looking to us to lead the way. The pressure is on and our compass isn’t faithful.

Guilt is a ghost ship. There’s no captain or crew aboard. It’s just floating out on the waters with the specters of what could have been. Guilt tells a haunted story that is not ours to know. We only know what is.

The Power of Accusation

Guilt is a powerful motivator. It doesn’t even have to come from people. There’s more to say about guilt, but for today we must hold up the lantern to the many times it comes from within ourselves. We want to stop an impulsive behavior like anger, or looking at porn, or buying stuff online, or stopping at the store just to walk past that energy drink cooler to satisfy that craving, or eating an entire carton of cookies, and we gave in yet again. We’re disappointed in ourselves that we’ve failed yet again but the inertia of guilt and embarrassment and pride keeps propelling us back into our folly. Have you heard the phrase doubling down?

Hobbies are powerful guilt motivators. Seriously. We think about all the time and money we’ve invested into an activity and are motivated by the guilt of it sitting unused. Now that I think about it, let’s broaden that to investments. We finished that degree. We planned that vacation. We built the library. We bought a ton of cargo for the journey we never end up taking. “Keep sailing; land is just over the horizon,” we tell ourselves.

It’s certainly not only investments, though. Failure to live up to who we know we should be is a major guilt driver. We’ve taken the bait on some tempting morsel and now that there’s a hook in our mouths, we feel too guilty for biting in the first place that we don’t get the help we need.

Let’s get real about our situations.

Do we actually want to go on that trip or play that game or does the weight of what money we’ve sank into it keep us going?

Do we actually want that drink or do we just feel obligation because we have cool pint glasses?

Do we actually want to pour our lives into a lifestyle or do we keep going because we’ve sacrificed so much to get here and now we’re trying to justify our actions to the extent we’ve lost contact with who we once were?

Do you actually want that watery tart who offers your honor back or is it the guilt of giving up on being the kind of man who is valuable that propels you into a siren’s song?

There are countless ways the disappointment in ourselves points its bony finger back at us. Accusation holds power because there’s truth to guilt. That guilt keeps us stuck in the whirlpool of our past and present actions with no way out.

We used to joke when I worked in used car reconditioning. Whenever we kept pouring money into a vehicle that should’ve been kicked to wholesale, we’d say, “We’re in too deep! Keep going!”

Now that we’ve kept going, we’re adrift and lost at sea. Until we find another unmanned ghost ship, that is. It may glitter in the moonlight, full of promise of relief but in reality only has a crew of new-to-us specters that will continue the haunt. There’s no greener grass out at sea. New shinies don’t deliver from guilt. They only cover it until the ache becomes so deep we have to seek another shiny to silence it. We need full blown deliverance.

The Only Way Out

The problem with saying “Cut your losses and move on in life” is that we still haven’t identified what we truly want. Is not the reason we do what we do to slake our thirsts? We keep chasing the wind because we think we will catch it, when in truth it’s the wind that’s propelling us?.

When was the last time you gave thought to what you actually wanted? Not what you’re craving or what you’re obligated to, but what you truly wanted. It’s difficult to say. As I said in the opening, many times we’ll have others following in our footsteps expecting us to lead the way. Men, we’re not going to be able to show our sons the way if we don’t know the way ourselves. If we’re lost in the fog, so will our sons be.

Here is where the fog began to clear for me. I began to think and have discussions about satisfaction. If I act out of thirst, is what source I’m drinking from going to satisfy me? I may tell myself I’m on a voyage seeking fertile lands with cool and crisp freshwater springs that bubble up from the earth and glisten like crystals in the sun. In reality, I end up drinking from tepid puddles of stagnant water the seagulls have been soiling. Last issue we talked about taking up our swords. Here is a fatal swing the sword of the Spirit gives when it comes to the motivations of our hearts:

In the truth of Scripture, we are exposed. The light shines upon us and reveals us for who we truly are. Then we must reckon with that truth. We must decide what we truly want: is it our thirst satisfied even if it causes us some pain to shed our old ways? or is it the indulgence of our guilt we want to entertain just one more time? This is not a fast process but change rarely is. Don’t let guilt keep you from moving forward.

Guilt can leave us unmoored. If we respond to the elements without guilt, we can learn from the mistake and make corrections to our course. If we do that, we’ve gained wisdom and can avoid the rocks next time we sail in those waters. This is honest to God humility. If we remain stuck in guilt, we lose twice. We’re eaten by the guilt at the point of failure and we’re doomed to repeat the cycle. We’re perpetually stuck in a whirlpool of guilt that we can’t escape.

We sing a song in church with this line: “No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me.” We can try to justify and normalize the ways we bend in on ourselves all we want, but the accusation of guilt inside of us will never be quieted apart from the power of Christ. His light clears the fog. The freedom from guilt clears the way and we can sail in joyful freedom, laughing at the waves and taunting the ghost ships because they no longer hold power over us. It is only in this freedom that we can become who we are truly meant to be. This sweet air is claimed to be wanted by many, but actually claimed in breath by few.

Be warned. The tepid puddle drinkers will dismiss or even hate you for drinking from the fountain of living waters and call on Poseidon to rescue them from their guilt. They are not your enemy, but have become prisoners themselves on a ghost ship. You will not win them all because the guilt can seem more safe than the free and sweet air. Indeed, the sweet air is not safe, but it will fill your lungs instead of suffocate them.

I’ve gone on long this week so I’ll wrap it up. Comments are open if you’d like to leave one. If you’re reading this as an email, hit reply and introduce yourself. If this newsletter helped you fight Poseidon this week, share it with someone who is in the fight with you.

Talk to y’all in two weeks.

~ J.P. Simons