To Be A Fool…

Guilt says, “I did something wrong.”

Shame says, “I am something wrong.”

Shame: Shame is a dangerous thing to feel. We all have felt ashamed of our behavior at one time or another… but the shame of “who we are” can damage us deeply.

Where does shame come from? Guilt can turn into shame if we do not deal with it. Remorse also can lead into shame, as well as the more obvious degradation, humiliation, and demoralization. Guilt usually comes from something we have done. Shame doesn’t need a cause to rear it’s head, because it is at the root of who we are as an individual.

We have a deep-seated need for security and significance. Security is knowing that we belong somewhere, we are accepted and approved of without condition, and that we are loved. Significance provides a place for us in life, says that we are important to ourselves and to others.

Shame invalidates these two core needs, and makes us to feel we have no place we will ever belong, the ‘real us’ can never be loved, and that we have nothing important to offer in life. In other words, we aren’t even worth having security and significance.

We hear much talk in secular markets about low and high self-esteem. But the answer is much deeper than just having a higher self-esteem… we need healed at the very center of our being, we need to know exactly who we are and why we are here, and for that we need Jesus.

I believe we begin to feel shame as children. Whether it is our perceptions of what we “should” be and aren’t, or whether we have been told or taught we are worthless… either way the resulting emotion is “shame.”

I have struggled much of my life with shame. Being adopted brings it’s own set of ’self-esteem’ struggles. While some children seem to navigate the waters more easily, perhaps due to the help of their parents, others get mired down in the mud of shame, even in spite of their adoptive parent’s best efforts to help them.

I was the latter. I determined in my heart at a young age that there was something wrong with me. Really wrong… not just with the outside, which I thought was hideous enough, but with who I am. After all, what kind of mother would give up their child unless there was something so terribly wrong with them, that they didn’t want them. Yes, you could have told me that wasn’t true (and it wasn’t true at all) but it was what I had come to believe. I showed a sense 0f pride for being adopted (hey, look at me, I’m adopted and special) when really I was hurting on the inside deeply enough that by the time I was in 8th grade I had become suicidal.

Shame had gotten it’s tentacles around me, and dragged me down to the depths of hell.

When I tell you that only Jesus can set someone free, I don’t mean to imply that he won’t use people. He has used people in my life to help me recover, but ultimately it wasn’t them who healed me… these people led me to the only One who could really help me.

I had no significance. I was nothing. I hated myself for not being ’somebody’ or ’something’ worthwhile. I knew that nobody would, or could, ever love me. I thought that the world would be better off without me, and that I really didn’t belong here.

The more God shows me that he chose me, that I was chosen before the world began… that he wants me, loves me, and created me to be me, the more healing and freedom I find, and the more I’m able to step out and share that with others who need healing, without feeling like I have nothing worthwhile to add. I know the one who is worth it all!

I thank God for the healing I’ve had… and I know that God will continue that healing in me. Our significance and our security need to be found in God through Christ, first and foremost, for it is He who created us to be… well… us!

Our needs for security and significance are filled as we receive our positions of security and significance in Jesus!!!

*emphasis mine

*emphasis mine

These scriptures help us to recognize and receive our significance to God through Christ. And there are other scriptures that tell us what our identity really is! To find out more about who you are in Christ, please click here .

Healing from shame may not come overnight… although it may! But as we learn more and more about who we are in Christ, we can began to heal. In Christ I am accepted, I am secure, I am significant, and I am free!

It also can be very helpful to find a good Christian counselor to walk with you through the steps of healing and freedom. There is NO SHAME in asking for help!!!

There are so many people out there feeling shame. God, help them to turn to you with their pain, and send your people to lead them to truth… to the Cross, the Word, and the Holy Spirit that they can be free of shame.

Guilt says, “I did something wrong.”

Have you ever felt guilt?

Guilt can be a very healthy emotion as long as it is valid. Do you know people who never seem to feel guilt about anything they do or say? It is as if their conscience doesn’t work. Or maybe you know people who feel guilty about everything they say or do. Both extremes can be debilitating. The first is scary, and the second is probably rooted in shame, which I’ll talk about in the next post. For right now I’m just going to discuss regular old ‘guilt’ for things we have done or said that we know were wrong.

God built that conscience into us. We all know right from wrong, and unless we have worked hard on erasing our conscience, or unless we have become a pro at blaming everyone else for our own shortcomings, we feel the prick of guilt often enough that we cannot escape our own wrongdoings..

The need in our lives that relates to guilt is “justification.” We simply need somewhere to place the blame for things. We attempt self-justification, which is our own attempt to be free of guilt, to be forgiven and to be in right standing with God, but in reality we only have three ways to pay the debt of guilt.

1. Place it on yourself

2. Place it on someone else

3. Place it on the cross.

The truth is that only God can justify us. Only He can “declare us free from guilt, by forgiving us our sin, and making us righteous in His sight.”

So, when we feel guilt, our absolute first step should be to take it to the cross. Nowhere else will we find freedom from guilt, and no one else can justify us.

Why? God’s word gives us some answers. I suggest you look these passages up.

1. Christ is the only one who is just. Romans 3:21-26, 28

2. It is God who justifies. Romans 4:1-3; Romans 8:31-33

3. We have been justified through faith. Romans 5:1, 8-11, 18; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11;

Titus 3:3-7

Take your guilt to the cross and receive your freedom through forgiveness! The truth is that it isn’t just you… Nobody is good enough. There is not one who is righteous on their own. Jesus took your guilt upon himself on the cross, paid the debt in full, and reconciled you to God. Take him at his Word!

Is this the only step we need to take? Well, that depends on whether our sin was just against God, or whether we wounded another in the process. Jesus does teach that we need to be reconciled with our ‘brother who has something against us’. So you can ask God to show you the effect your actions had on others, and whenever possible, you can take the appropriate actions to be reconciled with one another.