"I'm a terrible wife. A failure!" Maria* huddled in the corner of the couch as she spit out these words. We were seated together in a counseling room in the psychiatric unit of the local hospital. Maria had been admitted several days earlier following a suicide attempt. As she talked, the picture emerged—she was a responsible career woman overseeing a staff of 30 and was comfortable with her husband in their empty nest years.

From outward appearances she "had it all," yet she kept repeating that she had failed. "What makes you say you're a failure?" I asked. She energetically launched into her list: "When I was a girl, my mother kept her house spotless. You could eat off her floor. The silver on the shelves and the copper pots were always shined. I haven't done that. I'm a failure as a wife and mother." I waited until her eyes met mine. I asked quietly "Did your mother work outside the home?"

A light flickered momentarily in Maria's eyes. She had never considered that her circumstances were different from her mother's. The light went out and she slowly said, "No, but I should be able to do everything she did anyway. Work is no excuse." Again, I waited for Maria to look at me. I asked "Says who?"

I asked "Says who?"

Maria had accepted the age-old directive to "let her conscience be her guide." She trusted her conscience to lead her in knowing how to behave from day to day and in distinguishing right from wrong. But Maria's conscience had become a dictator, providing her with a long list of impossible expectations—"shoulds"—with which to run her life.

She was seldom tempted to do things we might label sinful, but she lived with shame and guilt for her perceived failure to live up to the standards she had accepted for herself.

She confused the condemning sounds of her conscience with the voice of God.

Many Christians can identify with Maria's dilemma.

Recently, a young man shared with me that as a child his father told him, "For you, the Holy Spirit is your conscience." Whenever his tender young conscience had a twinge, he was sure that God was angry with him. Unlike Maria, however, he decided to turn away from such a condemning God and ignore the voice of his conscience as an adult. Some people have adopted the philosophy "no pain, no shame" and have opted to behave any way they choose as long as they don't feel guilty about their activities.

Clearly, we cannot rely on our consciences alone in making decisions about our daily lives and activities. Too many outside forces contribute to the hyper-arousal, or numbing, of the conscience. We receive messages every day telling us how we "should" behave as good children, good parents, good Christians, good employees, and so on.

Some of these messages are spoken and some are simply modeled for us, as Maria's mother modeled a standard of what was required to be a good wife and mother. "Should" messages come from parents, teachers, spiritual leaders, friends, the culture, and countless other sources providing constant input.

If we choose to accept all of these "shoulds," we end up with impossible expectations for ourselves. If we seek to follow all of them, we will experience frustration and exhaustion as our consciences become those insatiable dictators. My question to Maria—"says who?"—was intended to determine the "should" statements that drove her.

As adults, we would do well to ask ourselves that same question about each of the "should" statements by which we live. Once we know where each message originates, we can decide whether or not we are willing to allow our lives to be dictated by that message. If the message comes from God, we'd better pay attention. If the "should" comes from any other source, we might want to ask a few more questions.

Maria acknowledged that her housekeeping standards had been instilled by her mother. Together we explored what God expected of her. She decided that God didn't really care if her silver was polished or her floors spotless. God did, however, want her to love her husband and to raise her children to know the Lord, which she had done. Maria began seeking ways to hear God's voice as distinct from the shouted "shoulds" of her conscience.

John Wesley taught the early Methodists to consider four voices of authority in their lives and faith.

Now, these points are known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, the tradition of Christian antiquity, reason, and the experience of God's grace. These four authorities provide a light that illuminates the "shoulds" in our lives, a way to answer the question, "says who?"

Let's consider Maria's perceived "failure" as a wife and mother in this light: Scripture does extol the virtues of cleanliness, but nowhere demands the perfectionist standards Maria had accepted. Likewise, Church tradition would support tidiness and order with moderation. Reason, or critical thinking, suggests that it is ludicrous for Maria to demand of herself the same standard her mother maintained with forty hours a week less in which to do so. Maria was definitely not experiencing God's grace in the shadow of the "shoulds" in her life.

Considering Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience would have provided Maria with a clear answer as to whether the voice that she followed was that of God or had come from some other influence in her life. Using these four authorities to review the "shoulds" in our lives is more reliable than depending on our consciences to guide us.

Which voice would you rather trust for the "shoulds" in your life: the harsh shouts of control from your dictator conscience or the grace-filled invitation to holy living from your Creator God? I seek to listen to God.

Judi Schwanz is professor of pastoral care and counseling at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City. *Name has been changed.

Holiness Today, Sep/Oct 2007

Please note: This article was originally published in 2007. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.