PASTOR BEN’S COMMENTS

In The New Yorker, Sara Mosle recounts that on March 18, 1937 a spark ignited a cloud of natural gas that had accumulated in the basement of the London, Texas school. The blast killed 293 people, most of them children.

The explosion happened because of a short cut the local school board took in cutting its heating costs. Natural gas, the by-product of petroleum extraction, was siphoned off from a neighboring oil company's pipeline to fuel the building's furnace free of charge.

London never recovered from the blast that turned the phrase "boom town" into a bitter joke. The one positive effect of this disaster was government regulation requiring companies to add an odorant to natural gas. The distinctive aroma is now so familiar that we often forget natural gas is naturally odorless.

There is a tendency these days to classify all feelings of guilt as hazardous to our self esteem. In reality, guilt can be valuable, as "odorant" that warns us of deadly danger. When the odor of guilt comes into our lives, we need to be thoughtful enough to consider it. During such times I need to ask the Lord for discernment. Before we dismiss guilt, let's consider it's source. If the odor comes from transgressing God's law or neglecting a duty He commands, then that odor can save me, my church, and loved ones a world of hurt.

At other times, the "odor" of guilt may be a false reading and should be dismissed without much regard. Satan seeks to distract us from following Christ and one of his most effective ways is needless guilt. Needless guilt can occur from an unclear understanding of what our Father expects or from something for which we have already been forgiven. Needless guilt destroys our joy in our Savior and we need to consciously reject feelings of guilt that have no basis in fact. Real guilt should never be ignored, but should be taken to our Savior for forgiveness and cleansing. Real guilt requires real forgiveness that only Jesus can give.