As a recovering judgmental snob, I’ve had a lot of experience with guilt. I’ve logged more frequent flyer miles with guilt trips than I care to admit. But what God’s taught me, over and over again, is that guilt doesn’t work. Here are four reasons why.

1.  It’s offensive

When I was in high school, I tried to convince a friend that drinking was wrong. I used every opportunity I could to call her out in front of others, shame her actions, tell her how wrong she was and convince her that if she was as good as me, she would avoid alcohol at all costs. Big surprise, but my guilt trip did not work. One day, she had enough. She exploded in anger, demanded that I “stop preaching” to her and basically told me to leave her and her drinking alone for good.

I learned then that you can’t guilt a person into changing her ways. If all they ever hear from you is guilt, guilt, guilt, they will become so offended, they will tune you out completely.

2.  It’s divisive

In college, my friend, Jen, started dating a guy that was very wrong for her. So, I did what I did best and I tried to convince her how wrong she was.  Over several months, our friendship became very rocky and we grew apart. Months later, when the dust had settled and all was well once again, I asked our mutual friend, Sarah, why her friendship with Jen didn’t suffer like mine did during that time. Sarah said something I’ll never forget. She said, “While you were trying to guilt her into changing, I was just trying to love her through it.”

Paul warns us of this in 1 Corinthians 13. “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (vs. 1). A guilt-driven plea to change, if not fueled by love, results in division among believers.

3.  It’s unattractive

When I was on the receiving end of guilt, I discovered another reason why it doesn’t work. One spring break while I was in college, I took a road trip with a friend and his family to Colorado. We spent the whole week together in very close quarters and by the time we made it back to his family’s home in Dallas, I was more than ready to finish the drive back to my apartment in Huntsville. The problem was that his mother was not ready for the vacation to be over. She wanted us to stay until the last possible minute and just couldn’t let her boy get back to his life at school. So she whined and complained and made us feel so guilty for wanting to leave. Not only did it make her look foolish, it made everyone uncomfortable and ultimately, it didn’t work.

When you resist the urge to persuade with guilt, you become much more attractive because you’re practicing discretion. And we all know what a woman without discretion looks like: “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion” (Prov. 11:22).

4.  It’s inconsistent

You’ve probably done this, like me, without even realizing it: You ask a child – your own, your grandchild, a niece or nephew – for a hug or kiss. In their typical ornery state, they say no. So, you turn on the fake tears, tell her how sad you are and try make sure your silly production is pathetic enough to make her finally come give you a hug. Then you smile and say how happy you are.

What you’ve just done, without meaning to, is teach your child a lesson that is inconsistent with the truth that you want her to learn. You don’t want to teach her to respond to guilt – even when you’re just being silly and joking around. Because someday you’ll want to teach her that no matter how guilty a boy makes her feel for rejecting his physical advances, she needs to be strong enough to stand her ground. To respond to guilt is to respond to a feeling. And the Bible teaches us to have faith in the truth, not faith in our feelings.

What other reasons do you find that guilt doesn’t work?