I am coaching my eight year-old, Isaiah’s basketball team and having a blast. It has been so cool to see him and his teammates grow and improve this season. I love coaching. I was a little surprised last week when I got a call from the commissioner of the league. He called to tell me of some concerns that had been brought to his attention.

A few weeks ago, the Tennessean, a local newspaper wrote an article about RefineUs.  The article went back 5 ½ years and retold the story of the affair, our recovery and how we are using that experience to help hurting people. We both felt like the article was well written and we were thankful for it.

The article didn’t sit as well with others in our community.  There were complaints issued to the league commissioner about my past and my right and worthiness to coach kids.  We had a great conversation. He stated their concerns. He thanked me for being real and transparent, and apologized for even having the conversation. I brushed it off, acted like it didn’t hurt and hung up the phone.

Trisha came into my office a few minutes later and she could see the devastation on my face. Tears filled my eyes, and a familiar feeling filled my heart.

There is a constant pull in my heart toward shame. There is a constant pull in my heart toward guilt. There is a constant pull in my mind toward unworthiness. In that moment, like others before it, there was a battle going on in my mind to not equate their disapproval of me with God’s disapproval of me. There was a battle to not be defined by my past, but to find my identity in my future.

You know that pull? You know that pull toward shame? You know that pull toward guilt?

-You can never make up for your mistake

-You won’t ever be anything but a drunk

-You’ll wear a scarlet letter for your affair for years

-You should always live in shame over your abortion

-You can never live in freedom because of your addiction

If you are honest today, maybe you feel like are losing the battle for your identity. You have equated the mistakes of your past for who you are. You’ve equated what others’ believe about you to be what God believes about you. You’ve resigned to the fact that you can never make up for all that you’ve done.

That is the truth: You can never make up for what you’ve done. And neither can I. That is the beauty of grace. You don’t have to.

You are not your mistakes.

You are not your past.

You are not your poor decisions.

You are not your failed relationships.

You are not your broken promises.

You are not your unfulfilled expectations.

Want to join me in resisting the pull today? Live in this verse:

2 Corinthians 5:17- “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun.”

Allow God to pull you into His grace today.

Do you need to allow grace to overcome the pull of your past?

Author Lewis Smedes says this in his book The Art of Forgiveness:

When a person asks us to forgive him, he is also asking permission to forgive himself. What he wants is more than freedom from our judgment. He wants freedom from his own. In one sense, we are the only ones on earth who can set him free to free himself.

For about a year after the affair, I lived in shame and guilt and remorse. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about all the damage I caused; all the hurt I inflicted; all the relationships I damaged. I knew in my head that Trisha forgave me, but my heart couldn’t accept it.

Our marriage in many ways was in recovery mode and we were growing in our love for one another. But the daily pain of my decisions ate away at my heart. It affected my view of myself. It affected my relationship with my kids. It affected my relationship with God.

I felt undeserving. I felt unworthy. I felt like I should be unloved.

I can remember standing in the kitchen and breaking down in tears. Trisha said to me, “Grace is only grace if you accept it. I’ve worked so hard to extend it to you, and you aren’t accepting it. I forgive you. I think it is time you forgive yourself.”

Those words were like water to my parched soul. I didn’t think I could ever forgive myself.

If I forgive myself, doesn’t that mean I’m getting away with something?

If I forgive myself, doesn’t that make it seem like I’m not paying for what I’ve done?

If I forgive myself, who will remind me of how much of a screw up I am?

I think shame and regret can be just as much of an enemy to a relationship as resentment and  unforgiveness. If one person in a relationship has forgiven, but the other consistently lives as a second class citizen, not feeling worthy to be a part of the other’s life, there is no room for grace to take root.

Maybe the best thing you can do for someone who’s hurt you is to give them permission to forgive themselves. Maybe that is a spouse that walks in shame. Maybe it’s a friend that doesn’t feel worthy. Maybe it’s a family member that can’t get over how much they’ve hurt you.

The relationship feels different. The intimacy you desire doesn’t feel attainable. You are the only person that can set them free to forgive themselves.

If you are the person that messed up, and you consistently live in shame and guilt and you’ve been offered forgiveness…receive it.

Shame isn’t attractive. Guilt isn’t a basis to build intimacy. To quote my beautiful wife, “You’ve been forgiven. I think it’s about time to forgive yourself.”

Do you struggle to forgive yourself?

Have you ever bought a new car…it doesn’t have to be brand new car…but a car that was new to you? Before possessing that car, you never really saw one on the road. You could have passed one often, but you never noticed it. But when YOU buy that car, all of a sudden it seems like everyone and their mother has your car. No matter where you go, someone is driving YOUR car. The truth is, they’ve always had YOUR car, but you only notice it after you own it.

For me, the same thing happens when I read Scripture. I have read passages of Scripture hundreds of times, but some how after I recognize an issue or a sin pattern or a fault in my life that particular passage jumps off the page and I notice it in a way I never have before. This happened to me yesterday as Pete was reading Genesis 2:25… “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

There is a shame epidemic in Christianity today. So many people feel ashamed. Ashamed in their friendships. Ashamed in their marriages. Ashamed in their relationship with God. Shame puts a choke-hold on grace. What you experience is living knowing you are free from the penalty of sin, but feeling as though you are not.

What jumps out to me about this passage is that there is a definite connection between nakedness and shame. Naked doesn’t just describe Adam and Eve’s physical appearance…it describes the condition of their heart. It illustrates their relationship with God.

Our willingness to live naked…to live exposed…to come out of hiding will determine the amount of shame with which we live. We can’t understand why we can’t grow in our intimacy with God. We can’t figure out why all of our friendships come to a standstill after the same exact amount of time. We convince ourselves that the pseudo-intimacy we experience in our marriage is as good as the real thing. Shame diminishes our potential for intimacy in every aspect of our life.

God’s desire for us is:

• Bare
• Open
• Exposed
• Uncovered
• Honest
• Known

What we live in is:

• Hidden
• Disguised
• Secret
• Concealed
• Buried
• Unknown

Adam and Eve hid behind fig leaves and thought that God wouldn’t see them.

I hide behind my reputation; my income; my status; my talent; my career; my smile; my ability to fake you out. What this type of hiding leads to is shame…and shame is the enemy of the life God longs for you to have.

Maybe today, you are experiencing shame in your life; in your marriage; in your friendships; in your relationship with God because for some time you have been unwilling to be naked. You have counted the cost of baring your soul and exposing your heart to God or to another…and the cost seems to high.

It will cost you something. To live naked will cost you a lot. But what you will gain is being known and feeling no shame.

Thoughts?