As someone with the title of missionary, who fundraised to make it my job to be Jesus to people, I found myself so overcome with shame earlier this year that I couldn’t bring myself to pray, or even open my bible. There was a big old impenetrable bubble of shame around me that isolated me from the children I served, the team I did life with and the God that I love. Inside my bubble, I was convinced that I was bad, I was unworthy, I had done too much to deserve love from anyone, especially God.
Shame doesn’t bring us closer to God, it makes us run from Him. Shame can never produce joy, love, peace, patience, self control or kindness. It manifests itself in isolation, depression, anxiety and doubt.
I refuse to believe that something so far from the nature of God is from Him, or even something that He wants for us.
Shame is like a pair of handcuffs that the enemy slaps on our wrists, then he walks away. If we settle and believe that we deserve the handcuffs and this is just the way it is, then we never look up to see Jesus holding the key just waiting for His child to ask for it.
Shame is from the enemy. I believe guilt is from the Lord. While they are similar, guilt tells you that you did something bad, and shame says you are bad.
Guilt is conviction that brings us closer to the Father. It causes us to seek resolution and rebuild relationships with those we hurt. Guilt brings us to the Father for discipline, who corrects and humbles us with His perfect, Fatherly love.
Because of our sweet Jesus, the mistakes we make are so far from us that God doesn’t even associate them with who we are.
When I was in my bubble o’ shame, God’s feelings about me never changed no matter how much I imagined they did. He declares that His children are good. And we each have to choose to believe Him.
