God, Shame And Self-Compassion

Shame is loud, persuasive, and weirdly “religious” sounding, but it does not make us holy. It makes us hide. Today I’m drawing a clear line between guilt, conviction, and shame, because confusing them can turn the Christian life into a daily courtroom where you feel like you have to prove you deserve God’s love.

We start with simple definitions that actually change how you pray: guilt points to what you did, conviction invites you back into alignment and relationship through repentance, and shame attacks who you are. From there, we talk about how a shame-based identity forms through family dynamics, church teaching, spiritual experiences, and attachment patterns, and how that identity quietly distorts your image of God. When shame is running the show, Scripture can feel like a weapon, confession can feel dangerous, and worship can feel like performing while you’re secretly unworthy.

We also connect this to attachment styles and religious coping. Anxious attachment can drive hypervigilance and overdoing to feel close to God, while avoidant attachment can pull you into distance and self-protection, especially after spiritual abuse or controlling environments. Either way, the end result is often anxiety, depression, and spiritual exhaustion. Then we move toward healing: rest as part of God’s design, and self-compassion as a Christian practice of honesty, kindness, and care that does not excuse sin, but refuses to add self-hatred to suffering.

If you want a healthier relationship with God marked by truth and mercy, listen through to the end, subscribe, share it with someone who needs a gentler view of God, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome And The Shame Problem

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Alright everyone, welcome back to the God Attachment Healing Podcast, the podcast that teaches you how your attachment style can influence how you relate to yourself, to others, and most importantly to God. And today we're gonna be talking about shame, what it is, and how it shows up in our relationship with God, and how self-compassion is an important part of healing the shame that we experience in that relationship. We'll look at a couple of differences between shame, guilt, and conviction and explore how shame distorts our image of God. And lastly, we'll talk about what it means to respond to ourselves with mercy and truth that God offers us. Hopefully, this episode helps you recognize the voice of shame more clearly and you begin practicing a more compassionate, grace-filled way of relating to yourself and to God. All right. Well, uh, this topic is one of those topics that uh I have talked about a lot on the podcast and on other uh podcasts as well. And um I shame has been something that is from the beginning with Adam and Eve that we saw in the Garden of Eden. And that's really kind of what pushed this whole me starting the podcast because I started with actually two different ones. If you haven't heard of this before, but at first the podcast was created to connect, and I thought, okay, well, it's kind of vague, it doesn't really carry everything that I'm gonna talk about on the podcast, so maybe I can make it a little bit more specific. So then I called it the Genesis of Shame. And the reason why I called it that was because I went back to Genesis and you wanted to know everything that was there before sin entered the world and kind of used that as a platform or the foundation for the topics that we'll be discussing on the show. And as I started doing more and more research on uh attachment, I got involved in this learning more about God attachment. And here we are, God Attachment Healing Podcast. So um shame is a big part of our healing and our relationship with God,

Guilt Versus Conviction Explained

SPEAKER_00 2:10

with ourselves, and even how we show up in our relationships with people. Um but one of the biggest, not controversies, but one of the biggest conflicts that we have when discussing this topic is how is it any different from conviction? How is it different from guilt? Because as Christians, we do feel these things. I mean, we feel shame, we feel guilt, we feel conviction. But how do you differentiate between those things? How do I know that the pain that I'm feeling in this moment or the or the uh guilt that I'm feeling in this moment is something that is going to lead me closer to God? So maybe we can talk a little bit about that right now as we move into this conversation. But uh usually the way that I like to kind of frame it is guilt is when you do something bad. So guilt says, I did something wrong, right? Um you disobeyed a law, actually, not thinking about that. I just I just received a little a little ticket not too long ago, and I I gotta get that resolved. I just thought about it just now as I as I started this conversation. Um, so I feel bad because I didn't see the the speeding um sign and it changed from one space to another as is common, and I just didn't pay attention to it, but I felt bad that I missed it. Not and I felt bad that I have to pay a ticket now. So that's that's just another layer to it. But that's one way in which it happens, or maybe you said something that was insensitive to a friend. You feel bad about that, right? You feel some sense of guilt. I did something wrong, I hurt someone that I love and that I care about. Um, you say something to someone that you didn't want to say, you maybe miscommunicated, or you acted out of anger or frustration or fatigue, and you just did not act in a way that you are proud of, right? So you feel guilty if I did something wrong in that sense, right? So that's guilt. I did something wrong, I hurt someone. Uh, conviction, um, when we look at it in scripture, really what it's doing is that it's calling us to something better, it's calling us to restore a relationship or our relationship with God. Um, so conviction says this behavior is out of alignment with my values, and I need to change because it's not living up to the way that I want to show up in this relationship. Um, and conviction, remember, because it's from the Holy Spirit, it tells us that, hey, this thing is pulling you away from me. Let me welcome you back into relationship, right? Come back towards me so that we can restore this relationship, right? This does the calling that the Holy Spirit does to us to move us towards God, right? To move us towards asking for forgiveness, to move us towards reconciliation, right? So I'm acting out of alignment with my values, which is that I am a Christian, and when I do something that is sinful, a thought, an action, whatever the case is, that doesn't line up with how I'm supposed to um behave as a believer, right? So God calls us to, hey, we we were to call to live a holy life. So we're moved towards change, right? So guilt is I did something wrong. Conviction identifies what's wrong, but it's more out of alignment with our values, right? We have a higher calling than other people do, than non-believers, right? Because the Holy Spirit calls us to that, right? We are to model Christ-like behavior, and when we fall short, we're called to repent of that and restore that relationship with the Lord. Um, obviously, He's the one who convicts us, He's the one who calls us back into relationship with Him. And we have to acknowledge and realize when we do fall short, so that we can restore that relationship, right?

How Shame Turns Into Identity

SPEAKER_00 5:55

So now we come to this element of shame. And what shame does, right, it says there's something wrong with me. And there's something extremely powerful about that in a negative sense, because shame takes what we do and makes it our identity. Now, there's been a lot of conversation around, okay, well, I'm a sinner, and as a sinner who is saved by grace, what part of that identity should I identify more? And that's a really important question because we are sinners, right? We we sin every single day, whether it be known or unknown, we do things that fall short of the perfection that God calls us to, right? So so there's that element of, okay, I'm gonna fall short. So how do I, am I supposed to be constantly aware of that? That I'm always falling short, or do I live now in the sainthood, right? That we are also saints in the sense that we are believers, right? And you know, the Bible refers to us in many of the um epistles as saints. And when we see that, we okay, well, I like that more. Like that has kind of a more positive connotation to it, and it calls us to live holy lives, right? So, depending on how you grew up, the type of church, theology that you believe, uh how your parents treated you when you were young, what your parents believed, what they did, also all of these things influence how you view yourself, right? So when I was growing up, a lot of emphasis was placed on identifying sin, good thing, right? We need to identify sin in our lives, repentance, good thing, right? We need to restore or acknowledge the sin in our lives in order to confess that sin to God, and then seek out that relationship and allow for him to pull us towards him. So, so that's how I grew up. So for me, that eventually with time turned into a shame-based identity where I saw myself in that in in a way that was very negative. Um, not just a sinner, right? A sinner saved by grace, but a sinner who's not worthy of anything. And when you take on that identity, you feel like there's always something, you never feel like you measure up. And that maybe some of that is supposed to be there. Um, but I think a lot of it is not, right? There's there's a deep understanding that I'm never going to measure up to the perfection that God calls, at least not in this lifetime, right? I've known many people who carry a shame-based identity where they are just the worst of the worst. They're the scum of the earth. I mean, this is how they view themselves. I'm not saying this about them. This is how they view themselves, where they feel like they're not worthy of anything or anyone or any blessing that God may have to give them. And by blessing, I don't mean monetarily or uh financial or health-wise. I mean just overall blessing, just things that are enjoyable in life, uh, a good family, good friends, uh, a solid church, um, a good prayer life with the Lord. Any of us like they don't feel like they can merit that. Um, and they they can't, right? You can't earn those things. Those are things that God gives us through his um goodwill towards us. And those who live with a shame-based identity often attack themselves very much. They they say bad things about themselves, and it's it's almost like this um false humility in a sense. I'm not saying that they do that to garner attention towards themselves, but what I am saying is that it's almost like where is the Lord working in your life that he's changing your perspective of yourself? Because it's hard to imagine a God who loves you to see you as a worthless piece of junk, to put it plainly, right? How some people would imagine that a lot of it because, again, of how they grew up, right? On top of that, obviously, if you followed the podcast, if you had parents who were abusive, who were dismissive, who talked to you in that type of way, well, obviously that adds more to the conversation here, that you're gonna feel unworthy in the sight of anyone, right? If you have the people who are supposed to love and care about you the most talking about you or talking towards you in such a negative way, it's hard to imagine anything different from that. So when we come to read scripture and we come to know the Lord and you're receiving teaching that adds to that, that you know you're worthy this piece of rags, you are uh no good, you're never gonna measure up, like all of those things, they they get reinforced, not because the Bible communicates that, but because all of our experiences outside of that shape and form how we view ourselves, right? So shame usually leads to hiding,

Hiding From God And Others

SPEAKER_00 10:45

self-attack, and disconnection, right? And we see this very clearly in Genesis um three, right? When Adam and Eve sinned against God, what's the first thing that they do? They hide, right? So shame says, not I did something bad, not I'm living outside of alignment with my values, but there's something wrong with me, like innately wrong with me. So with that, it's important to understand that shame moves you away from that. If you feel that you're not worthy to be saved or to be loved by God, then you're not gonna really seek that out, right? Um, and even as a Christian, when you still feel that shame, like I'm never gonna measure up, or you know, I did something wrong, so I need to pull away from God, I gotta hide, right? And we don't do this consciously, right? Something that you uh start to do, right? You just because you have such a shame-based identity, the natural inclination when you do something wrong, when you sin against God, is to hide and to attack yourself, right? To say, Oh, you're so you're such an idiot. Why did you do that? Here you go, failing again, here you go, making the same mistake over and over and over. And yes, there's a time for overcoming certain sins, but at the same time, there's this war, right? That the Bible talks about the war of the flesh versus the spirit. And so it's it's all all of this conversation is surrounding shame, right? And one of the things that is important to understand is well, how should I then talk to myself, or how does God view me then in in in light of that when I am experiencing that shame? So when people confuse shame with holiness, they often start believing that God is constantly disappointed in them instead of lovingly calling them forward, right? So that's an important thing to note here. When shame gets connected to spirituality, it can become especially painful. A person may not just feel bad about what they've done, they may begin to feel fundamentally unworthy of God's love. So you can imagine, right, when you feel unworthy of God's love. And this hiding piece that I was talking about earlier is not just hiding from God, it's also hiding from people, right? Other Christians in the church that we maybe admire, that we look up to, and we see their lives, and we only see right the outside, or or we don't hang out out with them as much. So we see just what's presented in front of us. Not that they're being fake, it's just we don't see everything, right? And we think that, oh man, they must be living their life perfectly. And I found that that's not often the case, right? We're we're all in this um journey of Christian living together, right? Those of us who have accepted Christ in our hearts, we're we're trying to do the best that we can, right? But with that is living a life of prayer, repentance, or prayer, conviction, repentance, and keep establishing that connection again uh with God. So that's the life of a Christian. I mean, that's kind of the cycle of it, right? That there's this prayer, I'm seeking to connect with God, and then when there's sin, there's there's conviction, and I need to repent of that. So there's repentance, and then there's connection again with God, right? So we are wanting to walk a life worthy that of living, which is to represent Christ to the people around us, right? But when shame is involved, it affects the way that we view ourselves and how we think God views us, right? So if we see ourselves as fundamentally unworthy of God's love, what am I gonna do? I'm not gonna want to seek him out. When you do something wrong against someone else, you almost in a sense try to avoid them because you don't want to hurt them again or because you feel like what you did was so bad that they don't want to accept you, they don't want to be around you, right? So we kind of carry that over into our relationship with God. When you, especially if you did something that would be considered very wrong, right? Um, if you had some form of sexual sin that you committed, if you have some form of hate or um uh horrendous sin that you did in your past, right? You might feel like, man, you know, that's gonna follow me forever, and I can't believe I did that. It's it's gonna make you feel that when you come to church or when you read your Bible or when you're praying, like you feel unworthy. And what does that do? It pushes you away. You feel like you can't be around God or around other believers. So you hide, right? And that I think that's a key thing because that's emphasized not just in in the scriptures, but also in the research, right? This aspect of hiding ourselves, of not fully being vulnerable, because every time they've been vulnerable, it almost gets used against me. Right. So you can imagine again how this can shape shape prayer, worship, confession, confession, and even how you read scripture, right? We often highlight those that reinforce shame narratives into our lives, right? And again, it's not that the Bible is shaming you, but it's that we read it through the lens of shame. So everything that we see that brings conviction, we see it as, oh, this is this just reminds me of what a horrible person I am. But we don't read also or continue reading through scripture the new life that we have in Christ, the new heart that we have towards him, the ways now that we can learn to love other people and how we can represent Christ in in different ways. We emphasize one more than the other. There's a balance of both where we realize that we need God. And the other part, okay, now that I need God, he's also living inside of me through the Holy Spirit in order to carry out his will into the world around me. So instead of feeling invited into a relationship, they feel like they're always in trial. And I think that's a really good way to describe that, where shame really is like you every single day being on trial, trying to defend yourself and having no advocate. And we do have an advocate, we have Jesus as our advocate. But

Attachment Styles Shape Spiritual Coping

SPEAKER_00 16:55

for the person who has a shame narrative, this is what it feels like being on trial on a daily basis, trying to prove, in a sense, your worthiness to be loved by God. Over time, this kind of internal experience is linked with higher anxiety, depression, and spiritual exhaustion. We see this in the research quite often. People who have either insecure attachment uh styles, they often tend to have higher anxiety because they feel they always that they did something wrong and that God won't accept them for it. So that increases their anxiety. And then if they feel so bad, then that leads to depression. And if they feel that it can never measure up, then they're spiritually exhausted and don't want to try anymore. So there's a very close correlation between religion, spirituality, and how one feels or how it affects someone's mood, or um, yeah, all of these other symptoms that have to do with uh daily living. Research on religion and mental health has shown that not all religious coping is the same, right? Some people use positive coping skills when we talk about religion. Now, I'm using language from research, which is religion and spirituality, right? So um when we talk about faith, uh obviously on the podcast, I'm talking about it from a Christian perspective, from a biblical perspective. In this case, I'm using what the research is referring to as um uh religion and spirituality. And the way that they differentiate between that is religion is the things that you do to feel connected to God, and spirituality is how you feel about those things that you're doing. Okay, so some forms of faith are deeply protective, while others intensify the stress when they're built on fear, control, or a harsh image of God. So this is typically someone who's a little bit more insecure, right? So it could be an anxious, attached, uh, anxiously attached person, or it can be an avoidingly attached person, where because they see God as harsh and judgmental and critical, then for the anxious person, their anxiety is gonna spike and they're gonna try to find ways to connect with God. They're gonna read the Bible more, they're going to go to all the church events, they're going to uh be praying as much as they can. All of these are attempts at creating a felt sense of connection to God. So it moves the anxious person into hypervigilance and also hyperactivity, meaning they are very aware of what they're doing that's wrong. So I got to repair that, I got to repair that. And then they start doing things to repair those feelings. So if they start serving uh the community, right, they go to a soup kitchen or something like that, or feed the homeless, anything like that, something that can lay a cover over that shame that they're feeling that makes them feel more connected with God. That's really what they're seeking for. They feel so disconnected from God that they want to repair that immediately. Now the avoidant has a different approach. Uh, they're coping because they see God as in a sense of fear or controlling or harsh, they they pull away. They're like, well, if I can't ever please God, then I don't really, what am I supposed to do? So I believe in God, I believe that He's there, um, I believe that He loves me and protects me, but that's pretty much it. So it's very distant, it's a very distanced relationship. And they'd rather not get hurt. Or they can also have the experience of having gone to various churches or having experienced some form of spiritual abuse from a pastor or leader and think that God is the same way. So if you know everyone's in it for power, so it is what it is, and uh you just can't trust anyone. So they just again are avoidant of not situations like that, but their avoidant attachment style says, as much as I would want that, I don't want to get hurt, so I'd rather just not be part of it. While the anxious has the approach of it's something I really want, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get that. So they're always in that constant state of anxiety. So when attachment insecurity is already present, shame tends to latch onto spiritual life very quickly. That means healing often involves more than changing thoughts, it involves changing the felt experience of God and safety. And again, this is this is basically the essence of what we're talking about here is that it's not just changing the thoughts, because most people have somewhat, I I wouldn't say most people, maybe half of believers have a good understanding of who God is, uh, that they understand his character on one side or the other. You have some Christians who heavily emphasize the love, grace, and compassion peace, uh, and others who emphasize truth, justice, and judgment. And all of that is is part of the things that God has done in scripture and a part of who he is, but you Depending on how you grew up, you're going to emphasize one more than the other. So, what I usually encourage people to do is I ask, How did you grow up? Like, what was what was the teaching like in your church? What were your experiences like with uh spiritual figures or Christian figures in your life? What was your experience like with your parents? And I use all of that information and I say, Emphasize the other part, the part that you didn't receive as a young child, as a young adult. Emphasize that part now, the other part now. So for me, for example, I grew up with more uh truth, justice, and judgment, which so I get I understood that very clearly. So I was very aware, okay, we got to stand for truth, we got to um have justice. So I really aligned that well, I aligned with that well. And I'm also the oldest of four. So that justice piece again just kind of fell uh more into the line of thinking that I usually have, right? So all of those experiences shape again what you tend to lean more towards. And the way that God created you, personality-wise, also plays a role in what you tend to lean towards more. So I went from that and having a shame-based identity and thinking that, you know, I never I'll never measure up. And I was constantly, again, I had more of an anxious attachment style. So I was doing so much to gain approval, not just from, not just from God, but from people within the church who I loved and admired. And it moved me to um to seek their approval by the things that they do. I wanted them to say, look at all the things that Sam is doing, and look at the things that he's involved. He's a great kid, and you know, he's really living for the Lord. And that made me feel good as a as a Christian. And um, I was trying to earn that love. And eventually I did receive, I did get to that point of spiritual exhaustion, like, man, I'm doing so much. Like, this is just the way that it's supposed to be. That's kind of how I interpreted the whole experience. This is just the way that it is. And I mean, this is what Paul talks about. I mean, he gave his life, everything that he did was for the glory of God, and I want to be like that too, and so I'm gonna do everything that I can. And when it could be, I guess as I'm thinking about it now, it could be because I was more worried about impressing the people in my life that maybe that's why I felt spiritually exhausted. Maybe if I was doing them to honor God, maybe I wouldn't feel it as much. But at the same time, there's also when you are doing, even when you're doing it for the human, frail part of us can get tired, and that's okay. And what that tiredness and fatigue tells us is that maybe now we need to rest.

Spiritual Burnout And The Gift Of Rest

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Interestingly enough, as we study scripture, especially those first three chapters, what was one of the things that was there before the fall? There was work, and there was also rest. So rest wasn't something that was a result of the fall. Rest was there before the fall. So that means that it was a good thing. When God looked at everything He said it was good, that was a good thing. Rest is good. So maybe the error that I had was just doing, doing, doing, but never resting, which does resonate a lot with me, and I think it resonates with a lot of people. Um, that if they were constantly on the go, and our culture again reinforces this, but when you're constantly doing and not resting along with that, then that's when you can also reach this spiritual burnout type of um uh feeling and and experience in your relationship with the Lord. So now what do we do with all this? Uh we talked about shame, we talk about how it kind of shapes the way that we view our relationship with God, relationship with other people, and then we talk about a little bit about the research and what it shows about how religion and spirituality is impacted by that. But how do we actually deal with this? What can we do to help us change

Seeing God As Kind And Near

SPEAKER_00 25:55

the way that we relate to God? So part of that is allowing for the Lord to speak to us in a kind, gentle tone. And there's plenty of scripture verses that talk about this of how God cares for us. He there's a part um a passage in Psalms where it talks about him as like a uh a hen mother who cares for the chicks, right, and protects them and covers them. And that's a pretty good visual. And then you see God just throughout scripture in general protecting his people from evil and defending them when they've needed to be defended, right? And we see Jesus also how he cares for his disciples and served his disciples, like he's doing those things for us, and the way that he talks to his disciples and the way that he ministers to them, and the way that God spoke to each of the prophets and to uh other people in scripture, we see that there is a kind, compassionate God, and he also in scripture describes himself that way, and he demonstrates that. So even though I remember when I first heard the concept of compassion, I like it. Like we should be compassionate towards others. God is compassionate towards us. And I like the Latin uh word for compassion, which is compassion, and it means to suffer with. So when we are giving compassion to others, what we're essentially doing is we're suffering with them. And that's a good thing, right? Where we're it with them in their suffering, experiencing it as best as we can along with them. Not that we fully understand, we're just in it with them, and we don't need to say anything. We can just be there suffering with them. What do you need? How can I help? What can I do? And some of us may be really good at that. We may be really good at suffering with others, but maybe what we're not so good at is seeing our suffering and seeing that as something to tend to as well. And if you have friends and if you have mentors, and if you have leaders who are suffering alongside with you, who are being compassionate towards you, that's a good model to have.

Self-Compassion Without Excusing Sin

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Because when they're not there, you can kind of take that and learn to be compassionate towards yourself. Now it sounds a little bit weird. I remember when I first heard the concept of self-compassion, it was hard to not to understand, it was hard to practice. Like, how can I be compassionate towards myself? I don't know if I really believe that. Like, how how do how can I be kind to myself? Right? I'm going through this. And especially you feel it even more when you're um when you're responsible for what happened. If you hurt a relationship in your life, or if you did something that you didn't like, or if you, or if you're just feeling tired, right? There's there's sometimes suffering um because you're just feeling tired and overwhelmed with the struggles of life. All of those things can make you feel like you don't deserve compassion. Again, going back to that shame-based identity. I don't deserve this. I actually I actually deserve the suffering that I'm going through right now. That would that's what a shame-based identity would kind of emphasize. But self-compassion, though it may sound suspicious uh to some Christians, at its core, it basically means responding to yourself with honesty, kindness, and care in the middle of suffering. Be honest. What happened? State the facts, what happened in the situation? Um, how do you actually feel about what you did? And then be kind. It's it's always interesting to me because when my friends share things with me, or maybe it's clients or whoever it is, I I don't respond with, man, this is this is all your fault. You deserve this. Like that's not my my mentality going into it. I hear them, and even if it's something that they did that they brought upon themselves, I still feel like I'm trying to understand what led them to that place and try to just be there and suffering with the pain of making a bad decision. I mean, that's suffering with someone when people people make bad decisions. We've made bad decisions before, and sometimes there's pain in that. And why can't we suffer with people who make bad decisions? There's a humility that needs to come with that to be able to suffer along with someone who's made a bad decision. But uh being kind towards that person, so can now we be can we now be kind towards ourselves when we do that? And then lastly, this care piece to care for ourselves in the middle of that suffering. If you don't have any models of what that looks like uh prior to the suffering that you're experiencing, it's gonna be difficult, but it's still doable, it's still very doable for you to show compassion to yourself. And I just want to be clear, this does not mean that you're excusing sin or denying responsibility, being kind and understanding and honest and caring for yourself in the middle of suffering, like that's that's a good thing to do. That doesn't mean that you're excusing sin in your life. And I think a lot of people grew up in that with that mentality of God being a harsh critic or very critical or judgmental or or harsh um can can believe that. They can believe, well, Sam, if I if I speak to myself in a self-compassionate way, then I'm just excusing my sin and I don't want to do that, right? No one wants to do that. Why would you excuse sin, right? As a believer, you don't want sin in your life. So don't take self-compassion as a way that uh in a manner that says that it's excusing your sin. It's not, nor is it denying responsibility. It's basically saying, I'm suffering in this moment. Can I be kind and compassionate towards myself? Kind and caring. That's it. It ref it means refusing to pile self-hatred on top of pain, right? You're going through something difficult. There's no need to pile on this load of pain, of self-hatred. I'm just the worst. I can't believe this, you know, about myself. I just, I'm never gonna get it right and all this stuff. I no, you don't need that. Self-compassion. It's a lot helpful, a lot more helpful to have people who are suffering along with you, but when that's not there, you need to learn the skill of self-compassion. How does the Lord speak to those who are suffering? Those the Bible says, I think it's in Isaiah, that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, he's near to the brokenhearted. So can you be near, in a sense, to the brokenness in your life without judgment? You've accepted responsibility, you don't want sin in your life, but you look at the situation that you're in and you can respond to that with care and kindness. That's all it's doing. Okay? So in Christian language, self-compassion makes sense because God is not asking us to join the inner critic. He's inviting us into truth, mercy, repentance, and transformation. Kind of the summary that was given a little bit earlier. What's the truth? Give mercy, repent, and then continue in your journey of transformation, of Christ's formation in your life. God's posture towards

Let Suffering Draw You Closer

SPEAKER_00 33:15

us includes patience and grace. If that's the case, then self-compassion becomes a way of agreeing with his heart. It in many ways kind of creates this conversation of this hurts, I'm struggling, but I don't need to despise myself in order to change. God can work in the midst of that pain that you're going through. Okay? God can meet you there. We've already gone over, you're not excusing your sin, you're not denying responsibility, you're merely learning how to speak to yourself and care for yourself in a different way. Now God's doing that, right? So I guess one way to uh summarize this episode is God is comforting you. But because you haven't experienced that before, it feels off a little bit. Feels like, what is it? Like, I don't feel like I deserve this and I'm accepting it, but maybe maybe God doesn't really feel this way towards me, right? That that's the conversation that's happening for someone who doesn't know how to experience God's compassion. But as you read scripture, you start to realize that God is compassion, He does suffer with us. I think the times that I felt closest to the Lord has been the times that I've suffered the most. I felt him closest. I didn't feel him distant. I think when I was younger, I felt him distant. And I felt him distant because I would pull away, I would hide. And that was a hard feeling, it was a difficult feeling, it was a it was a uh a shame feeling. Like I felt a shame because I wasn't a good Christian. I wasn't drawing to toward, I wasn't moving towards the Lord during my pain. But as I've gotten older and I start to really understand that God suffers with us and that God is with us, I start to feel that like every time that I felt lonely, depressed, sad, um uh in pain, that I felt the Lord close. It was a weird feeling, but now I love that. You know, it's it's one of those things where I think it's one of the powerful testimonies that we have as believers is that even in the midst of very difficult suffering, we can confidently say that the Lord was with us and that he felt close to us. And I can definitely say that that the times that I felt close to the Lord has been when I suffered the most. And the benefit of that is because I saw the Lord so close during those difficult times, I draw even closer to him when those things are not there. Like I can enjoy the blessings that he's provided because I know that he's gonna be there when things are good and when things are bad. That's just who he is. He's always present, always there, always involved. And as you learn to counter shame with so compassion and you learn to accept the compassion of others, you start to see God in a much clearer way as you move forward. So, guys, thank you for tuning in to today's episode. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at slconnect08 at gmail.com, or as always, you can also ask the questions on your Apple Podcast. Um, right at the top, there's a link there that you can check in. Um if this podcast has been helpful for you, I'd love for you to follow the show, subscribe on your favorite platform, and share this episode with someone who may need a gentler message than the one Shane has been getting the. Thanks for tuning in, guys. I will talk to you guys next time. Take care.