Shame

I know this guy that was going to get his security clearance. He asked me if I would be a reference for him. During the course of his life, he had done a lot of stupid things, but he had really changed his life around. For him, the days of drinking too much, womanizing, bar fights were behind him. I asked him if there was anything in particular he wanted me to gloss over. His response was "tell them the whole truth, the good, the bad and the ugly."

I asked him if he was sure, and he said - "yes, I know I've messed up in the past. I'm a different person now. What they want to do is make sure that I've told them everything. That way, no one will be able to threaten me to give out secrets because of something I'm afraid to share. There's a lot of freedom in not having skeletons in your closet."

That really made me think about Christianity for a second. Before we accepted Christ, we all did some crazy things. Many of us are ashamed of those things, and if we're honest... some of us still wrestle with some of those same things!

This... is what our enemy, the devil, uses against us. He will bring up our past, or our mistakes. As a result, we feel shame and withdraw ourselves from those around us. We crawl into our shell. Then, once we are alone, it's easy to walk away from the cross.

We should take a lesson from this. If we tell each other about our struggles, then we can get help. There is no shame in slipping and falling. We all do it. But when we embrace each other in love... when we band together - there is a smaller chance of crawling into our shell and withdrawing.

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. (James 5:16 New Living translation)

My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins. (James 5:19-20 New Living Translation)

There is no need to try and struggle by yourself. If we as Christians were open with each other about our struggles, then we would all work together to be better followers of Christ, instead of pretending to be something that we are not.