It was a stormy, summer night. That kind of summer storm where the air was dry and hot. The lightning flashed and snapped in thin, white lines across a velvet sky. A little boy wakes up and searches the small duplex. After finding it empty, he goes back to his room and begins sobbing in the darkness. He was wondering if Jesus had come back and left him behind. In university, that same scared, little boy, now dressed in the trappings of youth, wrestled with the idea of whether he was saved because he believed or because he just did not want to be left behind. Fast forward another decade, now dressed as a working man, he still struggled with whether God loved him even when he failed everyday or would he be left behind in the end. This little boy is me. That fear and those thoughts were my own not so many years ago. I could not reconcile that God truly loved me, but I did not love myself enough to believe that. This infected my interactions with God and the people around me. All due to a fear that took hold as a little boy. The fear that I was not truly loved by God, and He was seeking any excuse to send me to hell. Fear, Shame, and Pain come in different forms and can shape who we become.
Just to reconcile the loose end of the story above. I was having a nap and my family had gone to our friend's place next door. It was the 80s…it was a different time!
To be able to reach even more people and love them the way that Mathew 22:37-40 says to love the people around us. We must love ourselves and work through the things that hold us back from being spiritually healthy. In confronting our pasts, the things that have made us emotionally, mentally, physically, and/or spiritually unhealthy, we identify those things that are holding us back from loving people more deeply and more openly.
It is not a hard stretch to be able to generalize the following statement: Everyone experiences Fear, Shame, and Pain. These things can shape us, and even follow us into our relationships, our kids, our jobs, our churches, our missions, and our daily lives.
Fear
What does fear look like? What do I fear? Is it enough to simply tell myself that - ¨God is not given me a spirit of fear” - and move on? Would it be best to address the underlying issues? Do I allow God to use whatever means and methods to heal the traumas? To heal the things from the past, the things that were communicated to me, and the lies I have told myself to cover up the fears I now have? Fears like: not measuring up, of being inadequate, of loneliness, of failing, fears of succeeding, fears of connecting with others, and letting them see my true self? Was President Roosevelt correct in his statement that “the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” or does it go much deeper than that?
God, help me to not have a spirit of fear as I address the problems in my life that hold me back from experiencing the true JOY of being!
Shame
What is shame? What am I carrying shame about? How am I acting or am I reacting because of the shame I have in my life? Do I shame others? Am I bringing shame on the name of Christ by not being the best Christian everyone else thinks I am? Does that statement induce more shame? How can I identify the shame in my life and stop allowing it to stab at me from the dark recesses of my mind? How is truth going to light up those corners so that I may see the scared child that is reacting out of the experience(s) that brought about the shame?
God, help me to identify with Your LOVE, shine the light of truth even though I know that it will scare me. It will be scary to see the things I have kept in the dark, even from myself. Allow me to accept that You hung on the cross in shame so that I may be free.
Pain
What does Pain feel like? What do I do to avoid pain? Is the pain I experience, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or some unholy combination of these? How do I limit the pain? Do I self-medicate? Most people are not true masochists. That is to say, we do not enjoy or seek to live in constant pain. How do I experience my pain? Is my pain self-harm or harm from others? Am I trying to carry this pain on my own? Do I suffer and revel in the pain causing me to have a victim mentality? Do I acknowledge that my pain is real? Do I acknowledge other people's pain and how they are experiencing that pain? Am I dismissive of their pain? Do I respond like a wounded animal, and bring even more pain into my life? Do I inflict pain on those around me? Do I define my pain or does my pain define me?
God, help me to acknowledge that You are the Giver of Life. That living in pain robs me of life and that You desire that I have life and life abundantly. I understand that this life will always have pain in it, but that through You I may heal from the pain and have the freedom to understand this paradoxical truth.
Looking at the human experience, one can see a correlation of Adam and Eve in the garden to the end of their life and Christ in the garden to the end of His life. Each experienced Fear, Shame, and Pain. One side of the story cursed humanity to the same wretched experience and the other side of the story redeemed humanity from that same wretched experience. However, Redemption comes at a cost. While it is freely given, there is work involved. One has to be willing to open up and be honest with one's self.
It is not an easy task to confront the naked truth. Especially after spending years erecting walls around the secret places of our lives. Once we begin to move in the direction of going through those walls, we have a better scope of the magnitude of how far we are from the throne of God. Just how far across the chasm between us and the mercy of God, the arms of Jesus had to stretch to reach us. We begin to realize just how much grace and love was truly involved in the act of God sending His Son to die for you and for me. It only further serves to highlight how much we need to be sharing this Good News. Sharing how God continues to save us from the fate that sin had put on our lives. Lives that are further clouded by Fear, Shame and Pain.
Here at IMM, we are wrestling with the truth of who we are so that we may better serve the King. Why? Because laying in the darkness of lies and uncertainty are other children of the Father. Children living in Fear, Pain, and/or Shame, dying in sin, and they deserve to know the love of Jesus Christ. To know all the way into the very depths of who they are, that they are loved. That God has done everything in His power to make a way for them to be with Him and to live in that love. If we are truly about the Father's business, then we should seek to not leave anyone in the darkness.
We must live out these truths so that others may see the light of
Jesus´ Love on Every Screen!
