When I was in the fifth year of high school, I absolutely wanted to achieve at least seventy percent. I worked day and night, did research on the internet, and studied with friends after school. But when the results were published, to my great disappointment, I did not achieve this goal. Guilt consumed me, and I began to doubt myself; it was a terrible ordeal.

My guilt here did not stem from any fault. So, what did I feel guilty about? An athlete has to compete in a race in a few days. He trains, works on his endurance, his flexibility, his footing, and who knows what else. He follows a rigorous training regimen. But despite all his efforts, he does not win the race. Subjective guilt is limited to the feeling. It is a vague or diffuse feeling of guilt that does not stem from any specific fault.

False guilt is the feeling of dissatisfaction felt for not having achieved a set goal despite all the efforts made. False guilt is self-imposed. A dear friend of mine is a basketball enthusiast; he even inspired me to play. He dedicated himself to training and, during matches, he was the most enduring and determined. He was the captain of my class team. He was always the first to arrive on the court and among the last to leave. Whether it was team or individual training, he was always on top of it.

However, I will never forget the time we lost the final against the 6th-year Literature class of that time. My friend fought to the end despite the score gap and the low morale of his teammates. He was practically the only player left in the team. Yet, he could not snatch the victory.

It was one of the rare times I saw him cry. Friends comforted him, saying: “Don’t worry, you gave it your all; no one fought like you; you were the man of the match.” It was not enough to calm his rage and frustration. I still remember the sentence he told me when we were walking home: “What was the point of all those hours of training?” Indeed, subjective guilt refers to the feeling experienced by the individual.

What was your experience? You may have found yourself making more efforts than others or going through numerous hardships, but you did not succeed. That’s subjective guilt. Like my friend and I, you may have asked yourself the question, “Is this really all I’m worth?”

After my failure in the fifth year, I went to see my pastor: Pastor Éric Mutshipayi. I explained my situation to him, and he asked me to come to the service on Sunday (the communication of results in my school often took place on Saturdays). I will always remember the words that Pastor Éric-Ralph Kionga, who preached that day, said:

“I know it’s difficult, I know you’re crying, I know you have fallen, but today I have a question for you, God has a question for you: do we stop, or do we continue?”

This is the question you must ask yourself when you feel false guilt. We can also feel guilty for a fault we did not directly commit. We can feel guilty because of others’ mistakes or choices. Remember, guilt can come from others.

A bastard child may feel guilt due to the fault committed by his parent. A girl born of a divorce is not responsible; she will feel guilty because of her parents. There is a story once told to me by one of my mentors. He was on a mission in one of the country’s provinces to preach and teach the word of God. While he was in the middle of a sermon, he saw a message on his phone from an old friend he hadn’t seen in years. He decided to reply after his sermon.

Four days passed, and he was told that this friend had just died. He went back to find the message he had forgotten to read, which said: “I want to talk to you about something, write to me when you’re free.” Is he directly responsible for his friend’s death? No. But that didn’t stop him from feeling guilty nonetheless.

In such cases, we think: I would feel guilty for nothing, even though I know I did nothing wrong. Mary Whelchel, in her book “Freed from Guilt,” says of false guilt: it is a feeling that is not rooted in truth but is still experienced as strong and real.

When guilt concerns a fault that does not directly involve us, it is also referred to as false guilt…

This text is an excerpt from the book “THE WEIGHT OF GUILT” written by Joseph KUDIANANA.

We invite you to read the following article “GUILT AND SIN“.