Guilt will steal your wellbeing. More things have been done out of guilt than probably any other emotion. It literally is the culprit to most people’s instability. Psychologist Dr. Guy Winch wrote, “Studies have found that concentration, productivity, creativity, and efficiency are all significantly lower when you’re feeling actively guilty. It’s not only that guilt makes it hard to function, but…guilt makes us reluctant to enjoy life.”

Guilt is a thief; it sweeps in and takes any sense of confidence from you. The moment you start allowing guilt to slip in is the moment your wellbeing begins to slip away. It will steal your God-given ability to rest and live out your destiny. Guilt is the condemnation, don’t confuse it with conviction. Conviction gives hope for the future, condemnation gives death.

So, how do we rid ourselves of guilt?

1) Forgive Yourself

You can’t move forward in freedom if you’re living in unforgiveness. And sometimes that hardest person to forgive is ourselves. But God never intended for you to live in a prison of guilt. If you’ve done something wrong apologize, repent, acknowledge your fault, but for Heaven’s sake…literally…move on! If God freely forgives you, you certainly can forgive yourself. Stop holding your faults and failures over yourself and let freedom rejuvenate you.

2) Learn From It

Don’t waste guilt. There is always something to learn from this awful force. Don’t allow guilt to grind you down to nothing; use it to get better. As soon as you feel guilt, reflect on learning from why it is there, and extract the lesson you need from it. There is something in you that is allowing guilt so learn how to close the door and get better in the future.

3) Speak Over It

The tongue has the power of life and death. Whenever guilt tries to sabotage you speak against it. Speak freedom, forgiveness, and life over yourself. If you keep feeding guilt it will get bigger and bigger. You have to attack it with faith-filled words. Even if you don’t feel guilt-free, you need to speak as though you are. Tell yourself to rise up out of it. King David from the Old Testament talked to himself. In Psalm 43:5 (NIV) he says, “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Notice how he literally told himself to put his hope in God; he spoke life over himself even when he didn’t feel it.