Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
GENESIS 2:25
Did you know that God’s original intent for his children was that we would never feel any shame? The word shame in Hebrew denotes something so much stronger than to be embarrassed; it conveys a fear of exploitation or evil. It is amazing to me that from the outset, Scripture records that Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden and had no fear of evil. It was important to God that we be free to walk with him and each other in full transparency, vulnerability, and purity.
Although this is how God created us, we know that this is not how things are. When Adam and Eve sinned, their first response was to hide from God because they discovered they were naked, and so they were afraid. Ever since, we have been hiding from God and one another. Shame eats away at the core of who we are. It’s our way of telling our Creator that what he fearfully and wonderfully made is not good.
I was abused as a young child and carried shame well into my adult years. I felt that I was a mistake and somehow fundamentally flawed. When you are a victim of childhood abuse, you begin by being ashamed of what is happening to you, but you eventually come to the point where you think it is because of you that bad things are happening. A constant recording in your head repeats the phrase, “What’s wrong with me?” There is no torment like inner torment.
After many years, I finally discovered that you cannot run from yourself, you cannot medicate yourself enough to numb the pain, you cannot achieve enough to feel better about yourself in the long term, nor can you do enough to rid yourself of the stench of shame. You must bring your shame to Jesus.
Some of us are ashamed of what was done to us; some of us are ashamed of what we have done to ourselves and others. Whatever shame’s source, when we surrender it to the healing touch of Jesus, we can finally walk free from the prison it has built around us. Jesus will never dishonor or disgrace us. He took our shame upon the cross, and what God first covered in the garden Jesus once more covered with his blood.
You were not created to live under the unbearable burden of shame and you do not have to. You can bring your shame to the foot of the cross and allow Jesus to take it from you.
You can trust him.
MOMENT OF REFLECTION
Are you still carrying around the burden of shame?
Ask Jesus to lift it off you right now.