Growing up, I always wanted to do the right thing, and I always wanted to be kind. Those were my two main rules that my mother taught me. I grew up in a Christian home, sang the VBS songs, and in my mind, God was going to give me the best in life and everything was going to be golden and perfect with rainbows and sunshine. But as life went on, I realized that what I thought was perfect, Jesus had a different mindset.
Being the kid that I was, the girl that wanted to play nice, the girl that wanted to be friends with everyone, the girl that wanted to always do the right thing, the girl that was sensitive, the girl that just wanted peace, and over time, I had so many experiences where I just didn't feel good enough and I just felt shame. Whether it was my friend making me feel dumb because I didn't get a higher grade than her, or the mean girl picking on me because I dressed differently, I still felt shame in the end.
As a kid, I didn't know what I was feeling. All I knew was that people were hurting my feelings and I didn't like that hurt inside of me. But I also didn't know how to make it go away. And so, school years went by, and I still felt hurt because the popular group ignored me, and the guy I liked barely noticed me, and some of my friends would stab me in the back when I felt like I would give them the world.
But year after year, shame was still there. And that young, outgoing girl started to become this timid girl who knew that God loved her and knew that He died for her, but still felt shame and unworthy.
And honestly, I didn't even know what the word shame meant until a few years ago, so the definition of shame is: a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
And maybe you don't struggle with shame as much as I do, but there has been at least sometime in your life where you felt embarrassed or hurt or discouraged or just afraid to be yourself. But we were not created to be covered in shame. We weren't created to be covered in sin. We were created in the image of God.
"So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them." – Genesis 1:27-28
"Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." – Genesis 2:25
"Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made covering for themselves" – Genesis 3:7
Here, Adam and Eve know that they did something wrong. They knew that God told them not to eat that fruit, and their respond was to hid. And sometimes, we do the same thing. When we are in our moments of embarrassment or shame, we tend to hide and by hiding, we can start having this fear that Satan wants to put inside our minds, we start losing the sight of who we truly are, 'made in the image of God', and we start listening to what Satan tells us. And you start believing that "I am dumb" or "I am ugly" or "I am weak" and we continue to hide because we don't recognize who we are.
Genesis 3:9 – But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you"?
But God said, "Where are you??" He doesn't want us to keep hiding from Him. He deserves a relationship with us even when we messed up.
I'm not saying that you have to go out in the world and tell everybody all the sin you've done. No. I'm saying that God is not the same as "everybody". In order for us to find our freedom, we must move toward Jesus, not away from Him. We won't grow or get anything by moving away. Jesus payed it all for you on that cross, He already won the victory, He gives us hope and to find the joy in life. He carried the cross with your sin on it and you are free of it. You are new and made whole. He's not just some other person. God is so much different from everyone else. You can be vulnerable and open with Him.
- Closer to God and to Each Other | Focus on the Family ›
- Moving Ever Closer to Jesus | World Challenge ›
- 05-26 Unpause: Moving Closer to Jesus by Ivor Myers - YouTube ›
- To Draw Closer to God - Henry B. Eyring ›
- How to Get Closer to Jesus: 5 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow ›
- Lesson 81: Growing Closer to Christ (John 15:7-11) | Bible.org ›