You're only as sick as you're secrets.
I've seen this quote attributed to Christian author Rick Warren, but it's been floating around recovery rooms for a long, long time. It's Rick's about like God loves you as you are; not as you should be is mine. We heard the sayings, recognized the truth in them was powerful and repeated them. In the quote about God's love, it is a Brennan Manning original. In the quote about secrets, who knows. The important thing is the truth in them both, truth that can help set us free from bondage to shame.
Shame is a horrible form of bondage. Conviction comes to cause us to see our need for forgiveness and the grace to walk free of the sin that we're being convicted of. Conviction is not about making us feel worthless, or unworthy or ashamed. If we realize that we have fallen short and strayed from God's will, we can run to Him and He will wrap us in His arms, clean us and strengthen us to begin again with the power to overcome the area(s) we stumbled in. That's how it is supposed to work.
But God's plan has a element beyond His control that affects the outcome and how well it works. If we run away instead of to God, conviction doesn't lead where it's supposed to. As we deny our guilt, shift the blame, try to hide it or try to distract away from it and cover it up, our convictions become secrets and are twisted into condemnation. Condemnation and judgement are not God's will nor are they from God, not in regards to God's children anyway.
Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus. - Romans 8:1
Our secrets shame becomes something other than what we did or do. It becomes who we are, or rather who we see ourselves to be. It's the voice in our head that argues against the truth of God. God says we are His children, highly valued, righteous and blameless, precious and called to a purpose, among other wonderful things. Our shame responds, no, I'm ugly inside, I'm a failure, I'm a sinner, I'm a horrible person, I'm....
Those negative definitions of ourselves do not come from God. They come from the things we have done and from the hidden places in our hearts. We can't hide anything in our heart anymore than Adam and Eve could hide their nakedness, but oh how we try.
The good news of freedom is that there is a cure for the sickness and self hatred caused by shame. Open up the dark places of our minds and hearts and past to the light of God's love and stop trying to hide and cover up those secret things we despise about ourselves and our actions. Expose them to the Father, willingly, and let His love wipe us clean. If that doesn't completely set us free, then we need to go further, Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. - James 5:16 Find someone who will simply listen as we expose our secrets to the light to be burnt away like fog in the sunshine, or will will respond with the truth of God's word rather than someone who will enable us to continue excusing, downplaying and dismissing and shifting responsibility.
Finally, we respond to reminders of the past that is no longer secret and has been dealt with according to God's word by recalling our forgiveness and rebuking the condemnation. Shame is an area of pride. It is an area where we have not surrendered our thoughts and beliefs to God's truth. God says we're forgiven and clean. To deny that, to live as if it were not true is the hubris of believing that our individual sin and shame is bigger and more powerful that Christ's work on the cross. That is simply not true. We not only don't have to live in shame as Christians, we can not totally surrender to God and continue to have our identity rooted in and bound to our shame. There is freedom, let us walk in it today and send shame fleeing from the truth and love of God.
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