"No Good Thing will He withhold from those who walk in integrity."
There are several advantages to saying "Yes" to the right things in life, and using those "yes's" as the building blocks of one's character. The first one is a good, clean conscience.
Guilt, in my opinion, is the most vitally worthless human emotion there is. It is vital in that it helps us know when we get out of sync with ourselves and the character we are striving to build. Outside of that context, it's a destructive, painful, negative influence that tortures us, and should be treated as an enemy of our soul.
Guilt is designed to work like an alarm clock. It's job is to sound off loudly when we need to wake up. In this way, a guilty conscience is a safety net and a compass that helps us stay on track in life. When the alarm sounds, we need to 1) hear it. 2) judge it. and 3) act on that judgment. If the alarm is valid, we need to change course and not proceed with whatever we're doing that set off the alarm in the first place. If it's a false alarm, we need turn off the alarm and go on with our life.
Our conscience needs to be trained, just like our mind needs to be educated. When we're not doing anything wrong, and our conscience is blaring loudly, we need to take control of our conscience and teach it the difference between a valid and a false alarm. Under no circumstances should our conscience be allowed to torture us into conforming to someone else's vision of us.
Our character and our conscience should work together, with one goal.. Our character, built on purpose in the context of the third little pig's house, should have the authority and ability to stand as judge over our conscience. When we're doing what's right, and our conscience nags at us anyway, our character is sufficient to overrule the conscience and shut it down. On the other hand, when our conscience discerns a discrepancy between our character and our actions, the conscience should judge our character and we should submit to it. Taken together our character and conscience should work like our right and left feet work together and allow us to walk effortlessly and safely.
The odd thing is that people with a weak character often have a most belligerent conscience. They feel bad about themselves when someone says, "Good Morning". They lack the integrity to say, "Look, Conscience. Here's what I'm doing and here's why. Now get on board with the plan and shut the f.. up." The result is that their conscience bullies them around and beats them like red-headed step children. This is no way for a human being to live.
But the man with a strong character, set on purpose as a result of seeking that which is universally Pure, Right, True and Good has the integrity to pass all of life's tests - including and especially those mandated by his own conscience. He does not walk in guilt and fear, and he knows no shame. He walks in the confidence and security of a son of a King.