No Shame

I want to talk about an emotion every one of us feels as human beings. It may be one of the most limiting feelings we can carry. It is the reason a guy who genuinely likes a girl never quite finds the courage to walk up and ask her out. It is the reason a young woman lives in quiet embarrassment about herself, second-guessing her worth, never fully confident. It is the emotion that drives some of us to overwork and others to give up entirely, some to over-achieve and others to stop trying at all. That emotion is shame.

Here is a definition worth sitting with: shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed, and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. It whispers that if we were ever truly exposed — if everything about us were revealed — people would see how inferior, how broken, how unlovable we really are, and they would walk away.

Many of you reading this are carrying a nagging ache in your soul, and you may not even have a name for it. But it could be shame. You feel it because, deep down, you have believed things like: I don't look good enough. My family is a mess compared to others. I am not as capable as the people around me. I keep doing things I don't want to do. And underneath each of those sentences sits the same three words — I am ashamed.

The Ways We Try to Cope

Because shame is so painful, we develop strategies to manage it, and most of them quietly make things worse.

• We become afraid, and we panic.
• We withdraw. We hide. We cover ourselves up so no one gets too close.
• We numb the pain — with substances, distractions, endless busyness.
• We put others down, trying to feel a little better by making someone else look worse. Much of the bad we spread about other people is really an attempt to quiet our own shame.
• We chase acceptance in ways that hurt us, even staying in harmful relationships just to belong.
• And we blame — our parents, other people, or ourselves.

None of it heals us. Shame is not something we can manage our way out of. It has to be answered by something stronger.

God Never Wants You Ashamed

Here is the truth that changes everything: God never, ever wants you to be ashamed. Go back to the beginning. Scripture says that when God made the first man and woman, they were naked and not ashamed. Think about that. They were completely exposed — every flaw open for all to see — and yet there was no shame in them at all.

Why? Because they lived in a reality most of us have never tasted. They lived surrounded by so much love and acceptance that they simply never noticed their flaws. And this is the key to the whole thing: love, acceptance, unconditional acceptance, kills shame. Because the pain of shame is really the pain of rejection. And if you could know that you will never be rejected, then you could never be truly ashamed.

Everything changed for them when they let go of the knowledge of God's love and traded it for the knowledge of good and evil. The moment they turned away, condemnation rushed in, and that overwhelming sense of being flawed swallowed them. They lost their grip on the reality of God's acceptance. But today, God is here to give it back.

Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame.

Romans 10:11

It really is that simple. All it takes to break the power of shame in your life is to believe. All it takes to get your confidence back — to be happy with yourself again, to stand exposed and unafraid — is to believe what God says about you rather than what shame says.

Three Things to Believe

Let me give you three things to accept and believe.

First, accept that yes, you are flawed. This sounds backwards, but stay with me. Own it. Name the thing that makes you feel the pain of shame, and admit it honestly. Yes, I don't look like the faces on the magazine covers. Yes, my family situation is a mess. Yes, I am flawed. Do not run from it, because when you run from it you become inauthentic — you start living as a hypocrite. If you struggle with something, be honest with yourself about it. The worst kind of deception in life is the lie we tell ourselves — refusing to recognize who and what we really are.

Second, believe that even so, God loves you unconditionally. Even though you are flawed, even though you feel broken and messy, God loves you completely and accepts you exactly as you are. You do not have to do one more thing to be accepted by Him. You do not have to become better than you are right now. How do I know this? Because He loved you so much that He died for you. Someone has already come to lay down His life for you — literally. In all the accounts of His life, Jesus never once allowed anyone who came to Him to be put to shame.

Third, come to Jesus every day — bring Him your shame, and let Him heal it. There is a story in Mark's Gospel that shows exactly how He responds.

The Man Nobody Would Touch

One day a man with leprosy came to Jesus. In those days, having leprosy meant living in total shame. You could not go to gatherings. No one would come near you. You had to wear special clothing and carry a bell, calling out as you walked so people could stay away — "A leper is coming, a leper is coming." Can you imagine the humiliation? No one would befriend you. No one would sit with you. You were utterly cast out.

This man came to Jesus, unsure and afraid, and said, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." And Jesus did something no one else would do. He stretched out His hand and touched him. He touched the untouchable. In that touch He was saying, I will not allow you to be ashamed. And then He said, "Be clean."

Notice: Jesus did not only remove the shame. He removed the thing that was causing the shame. For some of us it is guilt. For some it is the way we feel about ourselves. Whatever it is, Jesus is here right now — He will touch you, and He will lift the shame off you.

All you have to do is come to Him in faith and say, "Lord, I am ashamed. Please remove this shame. And I believe You love me more than I could ever imagine." Some of us have been living with a quiet, secret pain for years, convinced that if the real us were ever seen, we would be abandoned. But the One who already sees the real you did not abandon you. He came near. He stretched out His hand.

Shame makes you take up an identity that was never yours to carry. Jesus has come to remove both the shame and the false identity that came with it. Maybe you have been so ashamed of your failures that you have started calling yourself a liar, a failure, a disappointment. You struggle with something, and so you name yourself by the struggle. But you are not those names — not once you accept the love Jesus has for you. The struggle does not get to define you when the Savior has already claimed you. When you receive His love, you become something else entirely. You are not the flaw. You are not the shame. You are the one whom Jesus loves.