Walk of Shame.
Reading Time: 6 minutes
“Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”
Psalm 32:1-5
I've struggled with shame, which is different from guilt. Guilt is a feeling of weight and regret when you have done something wrong, but shame is the feeling of indictment against yourself. Guilt is saying your actions were wrong, but shame is considering yourself wrong. Guilt is a feeling that comes when you hurt others but shame stays with you long after they’ve forgiven you and moved on. I've been growing, but a lot of my feelings are based on the idea that who I am is based on what I do and how others view me. If I do something good I'm good and if I do something bad I'm bad. This spills over into thinking I'm totally broken whenever I notice more of what I could grow in. But this is not how God views us. God calls us holy and without fault. So how does that work?
In order to understand our true condition, we have to understand sin. Sin is a blanket word we use for many things. Like a sickness and the symptoms of coughs or sneezes that come as a result, sin is both the condition of being separated from God and the actions that are birthed from that sickness. There are 4 main words for “sin” in Hebrew: pesha, remiyah, khattah, and awon.
The first two words—pesha and remiyah—are outright rebellion or deceit. These are the actions or symptoms of the sin sickness. They involve actions you do intentionally or unintentionally that are wrong. This is where guilt comes from. We have all found ourselves in situations like this whether we admit it or not.
The last two words—khattah and awon—are different though. Khattah is unavoidable, it is the idea that you miss the mark. You aren’t tall enough to ride the ride. You missed the basket. And if khattah means you missed the bullseye, awon means you were never going to make it in the first place because your arrow was crooked. This is an identity thing and is often translated as iniquity. It’s not that you did something wrong, it’s the idea that you are wrong. God relates to these different types of sin differently. While the actions of pesha and remiyah are forgiven, khattah and awon are covered by Him. While your actions are erased and forgiven, your brokenness is overdubbed.
In live music recording, overdubbing is a process in which you re-record vocals or instruments over any takes with mistakes. When my friends and I did the ROAR live worship project, it was amazing. That night, over 300 people registered and packed out a room we rented to worship. We only had 7 songs planned but worshiped for over 3 hours as people kept giving us more songs to sing. We recorded the live experience so we could repurpose and remember the night, but, because some songs were new, there were some forgotten words, wrong notes, and mistakes in our blend and timing. However, there’s something in the production process called overdubbing. Overdubs involve me asking some of my music professional friends to go in and record over the mistakes so you can’t hear them on the track. This is what God does to our khattah and awon. He covers it so that our mistake is no longer seen, He is. In Isaiah 61, we get a visual of Jesus covering us with a robe of His righteousness. Like an old kids’ show where the characters wear a disguise to look like someone else, Jesus puts his clothes on us so that He is seen and not us.
We all make mistakes. We all fall. But I want us to recognize how God views us. In Ephesians 1, we are told that we are seen without fault in God's eyes. God is fixing you on the inside while he is covering you on the outside. He isn’t just covering you, he is healing you. What's crazy is we view our sins with more weight than God does. We hold on to the guilt and shame associated with our mistakes when God doesn't. In Micah 7, the Bible says God pardons our guilt and overlooks our sins. It goes on to say he will have compassion on us and throw our sins into the depths of the ocean.
While others may remember your mistakes and count you out based on your shortcomings, God doesn’t see you like that and you shouldn’t either!
Don’t live life like you’re nothing. Psalms 32 says that when David was honest enough to give his entire self to God, he felt his burdens lifted. Guilt was washed away. Shame was not present. He was clean regardless of his spotty history. God sees you as clean and without fault. God doesn’t see you through the lens of your mistakes, He sees you through the lens of his provision. You can hold on to your guilt and shame or you can give it to God. Being honest about who you are and the shortcomings and mistakes you have made opens you up to realize just how much God loves you, fights for you, and sustains you. None of us deserve the blessings and sustenance we receive, but God still chooses us. This is just one reason I choose to praise Him!
There is freedom in admittance. God isn’t like other people. He won’t hold it against you. Give yourself to God. Allow Him to cover you. Allow Him to turn you around so you can live a life better than your past. God loves you enough to fight so that you can have better. It’s just about time we get honest enough to let Him.
Don’t walk in shame.
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