I have some pretty strong feelings about shame. There are phrases that reverberate from my childhood. One of the most irritating was "Shame on you; you're a bad girl." Now I do not know by what mercy I found this so amazingly irritating that I decided at a VERY young age that my entire family was nuts and impossible to please. At the same time I believed it was OK to love them anyway. Over the years I found much of what they believed was solid, even if their ability to live it out often lacked mercy and grace.
I must also confess that although the ONE thing I was most determined to do was not have those words a part of my children's lives, but especially my first born heard them slip out to my horror and it was probably by number 3 or 4 that I finally was free. (This had the benefit of teaching me that what is important to us can be accomplished with persistence if not perfection.)
And this brings me to my point for today. There are bad things that happen to us. Sometimes we have even placed ourselves in harm's way by making poor choices that make us more vulnerable and behaviors that broadcast our fears and fragility. NOT ANY of that EVER is to our shame. The shame always belongs to the person DOING THE BAD THING!. So, if you were treated badly, please shed any shame related to this. Inappropriate shame is not yours to bear or even forgive. (Really, being told I am forgiven for something that was done TO me is about the creepiest thing I know.)
There are bad things we do: we do them to ourselves and we do them to others. The feeling of shame is part of what calls us to be accountable to others, to ourselves and to God. We are responsible to repudiate the bad that we are tempted to do, the bad we have done. We are responsible to make amends as we are able, without causing harm to another. And then we are responsible to give this righteous shame to God FOR ALL TIME, because God is in the business of shame removal. Some would have us believe that if we release our shame we are inadequately sorry for our errors, mistakes, sins...
But in truth, God is either Truth, and in the love and rehabilitation business for everyone OR God is just a sham and no one escapes because not one is perfect. If this is a challenge for you, either because you are weighed down by the weight of someone else's guilty behavior, or the weight of your own already forgiven guilt, you are really smacking God right in the kisser!
If your beloved child came to you and said, "I'm so sorry I (insert crumby/dangerous/rude behavior here)" would you not be more concerned with the damage and danger for your child than anything else? So it is that God gives us rules (commandments) because God knows how damaging our errors are FOR US. We can not harm God, but we regularly throw ourselves down the rocky cliffs of self-critical, self-pitying, self-destructive ways of thinking...and then try to blame God who has been standing beside us shouting, "Stop! Don't! Change course! Let Me Help!" for eternity.
So, if you have done something shameful, confess your sin to God and ask Him to heal, instruct, renew and lead you just as Jesus promised and the Spirit of God empowers. That is the godly sorrow that bring repentance and leads people to salvation and releases us from crushing regret.
But worldly sorrow, that either we drag around because we don't fully trust God's promises to restore us, or the sorrow the world demands we parade to be acceptable to them, needs to be shed, repudiated, discarded, buried, ignored and, if it shows up again tomorrow, then get shed of it again and keep on like that until you finally have developed the habit of gratitude for God's love and acceptance -- because inappropriate shame is a cancer that kills us if we don't give it to God and keep giving it until we grow tired of dragging it back into our lives.
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 2 Corinthians 7:10
I must also confess that although the ONE thing I was most determined to do was not have those words a part of my children's lives, but especially my first born heard them slip out to my horror and it was probably by number 3 or 4 that I finally was free. (This had the benefit of teaching me that what is important to us can be accomplished with persistence if not perfection.)
And this brings me to my point for today. There are bad things that happen to us. Sometimes we have even placed ourselves in harm's way by making poor choices that make us more vulnerable and behaviors that broadcast our fears and fragility. NOT ANY of that EVER is to our shame. The shame always belongs to the person DOING THE BAD THING!. So, if you were treated badly, please shed any shame related to this. Inappropriate shame is not yours to bear or even forgive. (Really, being told I am forgiven for something that was done TO me is about the creepiest thing I know.)
There are bad things we do: we do them to ourselves and we do them to others. The feeling of shame is part of what calls us to be accountable to others, to ourselves and to God. We are responsible to repudiate the bad that we are tempted to do, the bad we have done. We are responsible to make amends as we are able, without causing harm to another. And then we are responsible to give this righteous shame to God FOR ALL TIME, because God is in the business of shame removal. Some would have us believe that if we release our shame we are inadequately sorry for our errors, mistakes, sins...
But in truth, God is either Truth, and in the love and rehabilitation business for everyone OR God is just a sham and no one escapes because not one is perfect. If this is a challenge for you, either because you are weighed down by the weight of someone else's guilty behavior, or the weight of your own already forgiven guilt, you are really smacking God right in the kisser!
If your beloved child came to you and said, "I'm so sorry I (insert crumby/dangerous/rude behavior here)" would you not be more concerned with the damage and danger for your child than anything else? So it is that God gives us rules (commandments) because God knows how damaging our errors are FOR US. We can not harm God, but we regularly throw ourselves down the rocky cliffs of self-critical, self-pitying, self-destructive ways of thinking...and then try to blame God who has been standing beside us shouting, "Stop! Don't! Change course! Let Me Help!" for eternity.
So, if you have done something shameful, confess your sin to God and ask Him to heal, instruct, renew and lead you just as Jesus promised and the Spirit of God empowers. That is the godly sorrow that bring repentance and leads people to salvation and releases us from crushing regret.
But worldly sorrow, that either we drag around because we don't fully trust God's promises to restore us, or the sorrow the world demands we parade to be acceptable to them, needs to be shed, repudiated, discarded, buried, ignored and, if it shows up again tomorrow, then get shed of it again and keep on like that until you finally have developed the habit of gratitude for God's love and acceptance -- because inappropriate shame is a cancer that kills us if we don't give it to God and keep giving it until we grow tired of dragging it back into our lives.
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 2 Corinthians 7:10
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