Written by Curt Thompson, a contemporary author. This is an excerpt from his book “The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves.”
Shame is not just a consequence of something our first parents did in the Garden of Eden. It is the emotional weapon that evil uses to corrupt our relationships with God and each other, and disintegrate any and all gifts of vocational vision and creativity. These gifts include any area of endeavor that promotes goodness, beauty, and joy in and for the lives of others, whether that be teaching our first graders, loving our spouse well, managing forests, conducting healing prayer services, creating a new medical technology, offering psychotherapy, or composing symphonies. Shame is a primary means to prevent us from using the gifts we have been given. And those gifts enable us to flourish as a light-bearing community of Jesus followers who work to create space for others who wish to join it to do so. Shame, therefore, is not simply an unfortunate, random, emotional event that came with us out of the primordial evolutionary soup. It is both a source and result of evil’s active assault on God’s creation, and a way for evil to try to hold out until the new heaven and earth appear at the consummation of history..[There is an] alternative story of goodness and beauty that God is telling, the one God is imagining for us all, one in which he is doing “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.
Prayer:
Written by Max Lucado, a contemporary pastor, author, and speaker. This is an excerpt from his book “Pocket Prayers.”
Father, you are so worthy of it all—my attention, praise, worship, and love. Your works are amazing, beyond anything I can even express. Help me be a light that shines toward you today. It is often hard for me to stand out from the world and be different. Give me the courage to make your goodness known and to never be ashamed. Please give peace to my friends who are standing up for you and as a result have found themselves friendless or with few who understand them. I thank you for your wonderful works and all that you have done and will do. In the glorious name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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