2 Samuel 14:21-33
About
fifteen years ago, I was sitting at friend's house drinking. He had a
sister-in-law who was married with two kids. I thought she was
attractive, and the more I drank the more attractive she became. The
more I drank, the more my moral compass dissolved. By the end of the
night, I was completely infatuated with her. So, I invited her to lay on
the couch with me. "Nobody will know," I told myself.
As we lay there, I started making my moves. All I could think about in the moment was getting what I wanted, not thinking about who could possibly be affected by my actions. I had no sense of morality left in me. I was all in, ready to devastate the whole family.
By the grace of God, she still had some morality left in her. She realized that she was about to make a really stupid mistake, and got up and left. Thank God.
I've never made amends with her or her family for what I did that night, and I don't know if I ever will. I'm not sure if it would cause more harm than good. However, I can tell you that the guilt I experienced the next day was overwhelming. It wasn't new to me though. That was just a small layer of shame added on to a whole construct.
Alcohol was already my master, and I obeyed it completely. The more I followed alcohol, the more demoralized and heartless I became. There was no such thing as discernment or rational thinking. I got to the point where right and wrong started blurring together, and I couldn't tell the difference.
Not only were my relationships with others tortured with shame, but the God I believed in was a product of my shame. Since I put myself through hell, I figured God wasn't any different. The way I viewed myself was projected onto this construct I had of God. I expected God to give me the ultimate death penalty. So, what would I do? I got really good at reading the Bible, memorizing scriptures, praying, and doing good things for people. I had to match my erratic behavior with behavior that would appease the gods. This was the only way I could maintain some semblance of a relationship with a god I feared.
I believed that if I missed a day of reading the Bible or praying, then I would have an extra hard load thrown down from the heavens for that day. If I was in a relationship, it would be ripped apart by the czar of the heavens. If I had a job, my boss in the sky would surely fire me.
This sort of thinking dominated my conception of God all throughout my drinking and for two years into sobriety. Even after I took my last drink, I couldn't shake the shame. I still expected my higher power to punish me for all the chaos I'd created in other peoples' lives. I set the death penalty on myself, and figured God was doing the same.
Thanks to a man at a retreat I went to, I was introduced to a different God than I knew at the time. This God did not hand out death penalties, but grace. I heard other stories so similar to mine that it gave me goosebumps. I got to hear other people talk about how much they feared God, and how screwed up their spiritual lives were because of fear and shame. On the morning of the last day, the man giving the talk gave everyone a chance to "leave their fears in the woods" before we headed home. I finally heard about a different way to live, one that didn't require trying to make constant sacrifices to atone for my misconduct. I finally heard of a shameless way to live out my spirituality.
That morning, I took a walk into the forest and found a place that was isolated. I fell to my knees and cried out to the God I'd never known. I admitted that I couldn't possibly love him and fear him at the same time. I didn't have it in me. I admitted that I'd been waiting on him to judge me and punish me, and that I always attributed the bad things that happened in my life to him. After I finished admitting where I'd been in relation to God, I asked him to remove the fear I had of him. I was done. I was finished trying to appease the gods because it was futile and endless. There was nothing I could do to make the god of shame happy.
Right then and there, my life changed. Something in my heart and head clicked. Instead of receiving the judgment that I was so afraid of receiving, I gained a new insight: grace. Ever since my childhood, I'd heard the word grace thrown around, but it never sunk in. But there in those woods, on my knees, a light turned on in my soul. I was ushered in to a new found dimension of the concept of grace. I realized right there that I didn't have to do anything to earn God's love, and that shame was a construct of my own mind. Shame was not a ploy used by God to get me to change. It was a byproduct of the lifestyle I was living, a symptom of my own lost sense of morality.
Instead of receiving the guilty sentence I had placed over my own head, I was radically ushered into the scandalous, compassionate, and gracious relationship with the God of my understanding. Instead of the death penalty which I thought I deserved, I received a holy kiss. I left that day with a hunger for God that hasn't been satisfied yet, and I hope it never gets satisfied.
Today's Action: Think about any areas in our lives that we are trying to earn God's grace. Usually, it has to do with what some people call "habitual sin." As a result of our own failures to get it right, are we trying to even out the spiritual scales with more good things that will hopefully appease the gods? If we are willing, get on our knees at some point today and admit the ways that out of fear, we've tried to balance the scales with good works. Admit that we've feared God, and expected punishment. Then, tell God that we don't want to fear anymore, that we want it removed.
As we lay there, I started making my moves. All I could think about in the moment was getting what I wanted, not thinking about who could possibly be affected by my actions. I had no sense of morality left in me. I was all in, ready to devastate the whole family.
By the grace of God, she still had some morality left in her. She realized that she was about to make a really stupid mistake, and got up and left. Thank God.
I've never made amends with her or her family for what I did that night, and I don't know if I ever will. I'm not sure if it would cause more harm than good. However, I can tell you that the guilt I experienced the next day was overwhelming. It wasn't new to me though. That was just a small layer of shame added on to a whole construct.
Alcohol was already my master, and I obeyed it completely. The more I followed alcohol, the more demoralized and heartless I became. There was no such thing as discernment or rational thinking. I got to the point where right and wrong started blurring together, and I couldn't tell the difference.
Not only were my relationships with others tortured with shame, but the God I believed in was a product of my shame. Since I put myself through hell, I figured God wasn't any different. The way I viewed myself was projected onto this construct I had of God. I expected God to give me the ultimate death penalty. So, what would I do? I got really good at reading the Bible, memorizing scriptures, praying, and doing good things for people. I had to match my erratic behavior with behavior that would appease the gods. This was the only way I could maintain some semblance of a relationship with a god I feared.
I believed that if I missed a day of reading the Bible or praying, then I would have an extra hard load thrown down from the heavens for that day. If I was in a relationship, it would be ripped apart by the czar of the heavens. If I had a job, my boss in the sky would surely fire me.
This sort of thinking dominated my conception of God all throughout my drinking and for two years into sobriety. Even after I took my last drink, I couldn't shake the shame. I still expected my higher power to punish me for all the chaos I'd created in other peoples' lives. I set the death penalty on myself, and figured God was doing the same.
Thanks to a man at a retreat I went to, I was introduced to a different God than I knew at the time. This God did not hand out death penalties, but grace. I heard other stories so similar to mine that it gave me goosebumps. I got to hear other people talk about how much they feared God, and how screwed up their spiritual lives were because of fear and shame. On the morning of the last day, the man giving the talk gave everyone a chance to "leave their fears in the woods" before we headed home. I finally heard about a different way to live, one that didn't require trying to make constant sacrifices to atone for my misconduct. I finally heard of a shameless way to live out my spirituality.
That morning, I took a walk into the forest and found a place that was isolated. I fell to my knees and cried out to the God I'd never known. I admitted that I couldn't possibly love him and fear him at the same time. I didn't have it in me. I admitted that I'd been waiting on him to judge me and punish me, and that I always attributed the bad things that happened in my life to him. After I finished admitting where I'd been in relation to God, I asked him to remove the fear I had of him. I was done. I was finished trying to appease the gods because it was futile and endless. There was nothing I could do to make the god of shame happy.
Right then and there, my life changed. Something in my heart and head clicked. Instead of receiving the judgment that I was so afraid of receiving, I gained a new insight: grace. Ever since my childhood, I'd heard the word grace thrown around, but it never sunk in. But there in those woods, on my knees, a light turned on in my soul. I was ushered in to a new found dimension of the concept of grace. I realized right there that I didn't have to do anything to earn God's love, and that shame was a construct of my own mind. Shame was not a ploy used by God to get me to change. It was a byproduct of the lifestyle I was living, a symptom of my own lost sense of morality.
Instead of receiving the guilty sentence I had placed over my own head, I was radically ushered into the scandalous, compassionate, and gracious relationship with the God of my understanding. Instead of the death penalty which I thought I deserved, I received a holy kiss. I left that day with a hunger for God that hasn't been satisfied yet, and I hope it never gets satisfied.
Today's Action: Think about any areas in our lives that we are trying to earn God's grace. Usually, it has to do with what some people call "habitual sin." As a result of our own failures to get it right, are we trying to even out the spiritual scales with more good things that will hopefully appease the gods? If we are willing, get on our knees at some point today and admit the ways that out of fear, we've tried to balance the scales with good works. Admit that we've feared God, and expected punishment. Then, tell God that we don't want to fear anymore, that we want it removed.
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