I was having a conversation with a loved one a couple of weeks ago about the power of shame, how it keeps us from reaching out for the very help we need because it tells us we aren’t good enough. Shame tells us that we don’t deserve a second chance. I mentioned, “Relapse is a part of recovery.” There is a reason “Relapse” is one of the lessons in the Twelve Steps of CR. I may not have relapsed back into pornography, but I have frequently run back to food for comfort. And every time my life feels out of control, it is easy to slip back into trying to control others or to allowing someone else to make choices and decisions for me so I don’t have to feel shame for failing to “get it right.”
That’s the lie that shame keeps telling us: We aren’t good enough. And unfortunately, this has become a teaching in the church as well. There is so much focus on Romans 7:18 (NIV), “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” There are just two problems with that focus: 1) In recovery, this is step one…it is the starting place, not the ending; and 2) Focusing on this verse of Romans 7 completely ignores the rest of the chapter and Romans 8. Paul’s emphasis is not on the fact that we are sinful beings who have no hope. The rest of his letters do not refer to us as sinners but as saints: elect, called, chosen. His point in Romans is that we have been delivered from that nature. Romans 5:8-10 (CSB) clearly states, “But God proved His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. HOW MUCH MORE THEN, since we have now been justified by His blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then HOW MUCH MORE, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life” (emphasis mine). While we will struggle with the fleshly nature as long as we remain on this broken earth, it is not the driving desire of our hearts. Romans 7 is clear about how the heart’s desire is to do GOOD. The deliverance from the body of death is through the Spirit who now lives in us and is at work, changing us “from glory to glory.” While I still struggle with the temptation to try to control others when I feel out of control, that desire is weaker than it used to be, AND I catch it. Then I make amends. THAT is Step 10. WHEN we relapse (which we will in this broken world in one way or another), we get to return to Step One and start anew. When we hand out chips in our small groups at CR, the script for taking a blue chip states, “If you relapsed, remember there is no shame in coming back. We feel blessed you made it.”
We have an enemy who wants to bury us in shame so we won’t return to our Father and to His people to get the help and encouragement that we need to keep pressing on. My heart aches for the number of people in churches against whom this very weapon of the enemy is used to try to control and manipulate. That isn’t love, and it isn’t Jesus. Shame is not an effective motivator of change any more than fear is. I spent years being afraid of doing the wrong thing and saying the wrong words. I put on a mask to hide the insecurities inside: the fear of failure, of rejection, of abandonment. Unfortunately, the churches I was in only strengthened that fear and insecurity. It has taken a lot of work and a lot of people loving me like Jesus for me to come to know that if He saved me when I was still a sinner, when I was at my absolute worst, KNOWING everything that I would still do even as a believer, if He would look at me then and say I was worth being chosen, then for me to believe any less of myself than what He has said and shown is not believing the truth. When I believe a lie, He shows me through His Spirit, not to condemn me, but so I can come to Him and allow Him to replace that lie with the Truth. That is the beauty of a walk with Jesus. He gave us HIMSELF through His Spirit in us so that we could become more and more like Him. That is a gift worth grabbing and never letting go.
