Some Things We Cannot Not Know
Have you ever stepped to the edge of a massive cliff? Or encountered a rattlesnake while you were out hiking, and felt the choking thrill that comes with it?
It is natural to feel fear when we step close to the edge of
a cliff or cross paths with a snake. This sense of danger has been programmed
into our brains and bodies. We intuitively know that certain things will hurt
us. Nobody has to tell us to be afraid of heights or of certain wild animals. This
is good and natural and was built into us by God for our protection.
Fear is not the only instinct that God has given us to
protect ourselves. He has also given us guilt and shame.
Guilt and shame work much like fear. It is a warning signal,
an alarm in our soul to warn us when we are stepping into dangerous territory,
when we are moving away from God and into sin. God is the source of life and
love, and sin is anything that pulls us away from him. Sin always produces
destruction and chaos, sometimes this destruction is minor and other times it
is devastating. Sometimes it is just a tear in our souls, and other times it
rips apart entire civilizations.
Shame works to warn us that we are crossing that boundary,
we are walking away from God's light and love and into sin's destruction and
chaos.
The reason we feel shame is rooted in the fact that we are
created in the image of God, we have built-in knowledge of right and wrong,
good and evil. There are certain moral truths that we cannot not know. Nobody
has to tell us certain things are wrong.
Nobody has to teach a beaver how to build a dam or a sparrow
how to build a nest, and nobody has to tell us that adultery, theft and murder
are wrong.
Nobody has to teach the little boy to hide the fact that he
has stolen cookies from the cookie jar.
Nobody has to tell the little girl to lie about the fact
that she hit another child in anger.
We all know when we have sinned. We may be able to hide it
from other people, but we cannot hide from the guilt we feel in our souls.
Our instinct to hide our sin is rooted in this shame, and
this shame is rooted in that inherent knowledge of good and evil.
Romans 1:18 says this, "For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who
hold the truth in unrighteousness."
The word "hold" in this verse is something of a
wrestling term. Imagine somebody being held in a headlock. This is what we do
with the shame and guilt we feel. We put it in an arm bar, we wrestle it, and
resist it. We suppress or subdue these feelings.
We delight in the pleasure of sin, so when the inevitable
guilt arises, we rationalize and excuse it. We want our greed and lust, our
pride and ambition and no one will deprive us of it. We deny our guilt as
social constructs, relics of man-made religion or left-over Puritan
sentimentality.
What we so often fail to realize is that guilt is a warning
mechanism given to us by God for our own protection and happiness, and
cultivating a healthy conscience and sense of guilt and shame is a good thing.
It is certainly possible to train ourselves not to be afraid
of heights or snakes, and as a result we may end up harming ourselves. Something
similar happens with shame, we suppress and resist it and we put ourselves in a
dangerous position spiritually, emotionally and even physically.
We have a choice, to either listen to our conscience, and
the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, or to subdue those voices and
indulge in our sin.
Just as there are times and situations when it is perfectly
reasonable and right to feel fear, there are times and situations when it is
good and right to feel guilt and shame.
What matters most significantly is what we do with these
signals? Do we ignore them, suppress them? Most of the time the best thing for
us to do is to listen and allow them to lead us back to the Lord.
Just as fear gives us a signal to turn away from danger and
find safety, shame tells us to turn away from sin and return to our Savior.
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