Where Do You Put Your Shame?

May 26

My love is greater than any sin that separates. Come, let your soul confess. Jesus is stronger than shame. Come, watch Him intercede on your behalf. Holy Spirit is more powerful than pride. Come, let Him destroy it—let Him help you repent and turn away from that old life that has convinced you to be your own god.

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Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down–this might be the same place where you go every week because that is where you feel safe and good. Or, this day, because there is no other day like this day, you might find that you feel like doing something a bit different–perhaps standing and walking for a bit if you usually sit; or perhaps turning your seat so that you have a different vantage point than to what you're accustomed.

Just know this is true: this is no ordinary day. It is a day you breathe—in….out—-an extraordinary love. It is a day you breathe—in…out—an extraordinary peace. It is a day you breathe—in…out–an extraordinary grace. You are extraordinary. It is how God made you. End of story. (And the beginning of all stories, too.)

Breathe in now…. My God

Breathe out….. You are with me.

Breathe in…. My God

Breathe out…. You are with me.

Breathe in now…. Your love

Breathe out… .fills me

Breathe in…. Your love

Breathe out… fills me

With your eyes closed, continue this deep, slow, intentional breathing for a few minutes. Open your palms, perhaps holding one hand over your heart. Holy Spirit is in you. Feel your heart beating.

Now, consider how you are feeling today–what weight you might be carrying–in your mind, your soul, and your body. What are you holding now? In what way do you feel heavy? Picture Jesus before you (He is with you, Holy Spirit within you), and give to Him every worry, every relationship, every thought, every plan that fills your mind now.

Jesus, I give you______________________________________.
Fill my heart with your peace.

Take another deep breath. Roll your wrists, your neck. Raise your shoulders up and back and around. Circle your head. Stretch your legs, then your back. Rotate your ankles; reach your arms up and over your head.

Next, spend a few moments considering this set of verses from Psalm 34:4-5, from The Passion translation. Let God lead you–notice how your heart feels when you read these lines. What words resonate more than others?

“Listen to my testimony: I cried to God in my distress

and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears!

Gaze upon him, join your life with his, and joy will come.

Your face will glisten with glory.

You’ll never wear that shame-face again” (Psalm 34:4-5).

Now, we have the opportunity to let God even deeper into our hearts now.

When you consider verse 5: “You’ll never wear that shame-face again,” how does that make you feel?

What is your relationship with shame? Is it a weight you have ever carried?

After we sin, shame is often right behind. What we don’t want is for sin to bury itself in our hearts and take residence there. We don’t want it to be what decides our identity, our past, our future, the deepest truths about who we are.

Shame lies to us. It wants to pull us apart from God. And God, in his kindness, leaves it up to us to decide if shame is what we want to believe, if shame is where we want to stay.

What role does shame play in your life? Spend a few moments talking to God about your relationship with shame. Perhaps ask Him what He wants to do about it. Write down the conversation in your journal if that helps you hear God’s voice. Stay here a while. This is really important. Don’t rush this.

Lord, what role has shame played in my life? Show me what I don’t know. Help me understand and see what You see.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, as we continue to think about the role of shame in our lives, we’re going to turn our attention to a story: In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis wrote about a man who had struggled with a particular sin for a long time—so long, in fact, that he no longer believed God could help him. In some ways, he no longer wanted God to help him. He’d come to doubt God, to fear Him, actually—because, though this man may have hated his struggle, he believed it had become a part of him, part of his identity. So, when God, through an angel, offered restoration, the man himself feels threatened and resists—at first, at least.

In the allegory, Lewis depicted sin as a red lizard sitting on this man’s shoulder, whispering lies into his ear. The very presence of the lizard is disgusting and disturbing to us as readers—and no doubt to this character Lewis created too. But the man had given the lizard access for a long time. He’d allowed the lizard to spin his lies for a long time. And so the man had become confused. The lizard’s presence had become familiar to him. The man began to have a hard time distinguishing truth from falsehood, friend from foe. He had a hard time trusting that allowing God to destroy the lizard would mean freedom and not death for him, too.

When we allow sin and shame to linger, you and I are just like this man—believing that the way we’ve chosen, the way without Jesus, is somehow best for us. We begin to manage and bargain and justify and excuse our sin. And we begin to believe that it’s somehow okay for our sin and shame to remain—for a bit longer, at least. And so we give sin and shame more and more access to our lives. And they whisper more and more . . . and our confusion grows—and so does our separation from God.

Jesus is relentless, though. And He loves us too much to let us go. In The Great Divorce, the man, exhausted, finally relents and surrenders—and the angel reaches out his flaming hands and kills the lizard . . . and what happens next is amazing. From an oily red reptile on the ground with its back broken, the lizard transforms into a silver-white stallion that carries the now beautifully transformed man on his back. With the angel standing by, they ride further up and further into heaven.

There is no question, sin and shame separate us from God. And sometimes it feels right to hold onto ours up until now. Sometimes we even accept some pretty clever rationalizations as to why the sin and the shame in our lives aren’t so bad. But Jesus loves us so much that He came to set all of us free from sin and shame. And He and His Father couldn’t stand the idea of eternity (or even one more minute of this life) without us, apart from us.

So, all we have to do now, like the man in C.S. Lewis’s allegory, is let Jesus in. All we have to do is to turn toward Him, toward a fresh, new start.

Jesus, yes, give me a fresh, new start...

Let's pray a few verses from Psalm 139. And let’s ask Holy Spirit for some help in revealing to us the sin that lingers in our hearts and in our lives right now.

“God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart.

Examine me through and through;

find out everything that may be hidden within me.

Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares.

See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on,

and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting ways—

the path that brings me back to you.”

Take a deep breath. Relax your mind, your neck, your torso, your hands. Wait on Jesus. Expect that He will indeed search your heart. Expect that He will lead you back to Him—lead you toward mercy, toward forgiveness, and toward healing.

Jesus . . .

Now, just like the man in the story, release your sin and your shame to Jesus. Trust Him. Confess them to Him, now.

Jesus, I confess . . .

Repent of them too. Turn your back on your sin. Tell Jesus you want to live free of this shame. And ask Jesus to destroy them both.

Jesus, I repent . . .

Then ask Jesus to destroy this sin and this shame. Imagine Him doing that now.

What is Jesus doing with your sin? What does He do with your shame?

Whatever Jesus showed you, whatever He said to you, whatever you saw Him do, if it fits within the principles of Scripture, then pray in agreement with Him. Thank Him for coming and beginning the process of dealing with the sin and the shame in your life. And trust that, just like the angel did with the lizard on the man’s shoulder, He is now transforming your sin and shame into something beautiful and something good.