Sunday my friend and pastor Steve Wiens recommended three prayers for Holy Week this year, including: “God, reveal where I’m hidden and help me to see.”

Shame

The shame of a wounded conscience is a trap. It’s a lie that tries to convince us that hopelessly defective: “I am what I am. I cannot change. I am hopeless.”

Shame is the deep feeling of guilt, sadness, and hopelessness that we experience when we become convinced that our shadows, scars and scandals doom us. That past failures, bad habits or poor appearance has made a permanent scar on our self-worth.

After the response to yesterday’s post, I thought it would be a great time to remind you of a post from last year, 5 Stop Signs that will help your life GO better.

5 Stop Signs

1. Stop believing the lie: Life isn’t always fair. Accept what you must, and change what you can.

2. Stop before you regret it: Think before you act. A moment today may cause pain for years.

3. Stop & notice: See the beauty in people, in nature, and in yourself.

4. Stop to appreciate what you have: Family & friends, talents, opportunities & useful stuff.

Dating difficulties drag us down.  Whether it’s crying our way through a painful breakup, dealing with being dumped, or coping with the obvious sense  that we’ve blundered, blown it and need to move on, they all drag us down.

Dragged Down

Maybe you don’t have dating drama.  Maybe you’re jealous of the cute girl in the next cubicle, the muscular guy in the seat next to you, or the smart girl who always has the right answer.

Maybe you’re an unemployed NFL referee whose mistakes were played over and over on national TV. 

I’m wrestling with myself, because…

I hate when I mess up.
I hate when I let down my guard.
I hate when I lower my standards.
I hate when I try to wiggle out.
I hate when I rationalize my choices.
I hate when I justify my behavior.
I hate when I make excuses.
I hate when I settle.
I hate when I plot stupid stuff.
I hate when I hide my failures.

You’ve heard it said, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Shame on you.”

Sadly, more than one parent has used shame and humiliation to try to change the behavior of their children.

We have a lot of them, cultural blunders.

Here are a few blunders, but there are thousands more.
– Walking around with your “fly” undone.
– Farting in an elevator.
– Talking loudly during a movie.
– Singing, loud, off key.
– Throwing a tantrum in public.
– Breaking something in a store.
– Dirtying, or staining, your good clothes.

Rules Change

We’ve had a garage sale at our house this week.

I’ve noticed two things that disturb me. 

First, far too many of the things in our house arrived in our house because of my greed. 

Second, I am not alone.  Many of our customers bought with greedy abandon.

“For the LOVE of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have … pierced themselves with many sorrows…

so run

from all these evil things.” *

Greed is enticing.
Greed is deceitful.
Greed is deceptive.
Greed is a trap.

Overcoming the fear of being exposed is one of the keys to breaking the bondage of the tricks and lies about cutting.

The Fear Of Exposure Perverts Our Thinking

“Psychologist Larry Crabb says that the primary motivation for all of our social behavior is a fear that if others really knew us as we are, they would reject us in disgust. This fear of exposure is rooted in our sense of the ugliness of our fallen natures as they have been perverted and corrupted by sin. Satan delights in inflaming this fear…”

Honesty is a culturally threatening virtue. So threatening that few people make it a constant choice. It’s counter-cultural to choose to be honest.

Cultural Corruption

People joked about cheating on their taxes – “it’s okay unless you get caught.” People make “little white lies.” They cover up the truth “to protect the other person.”

“Everyone lies” and “everyone lies some of the time” are routinely used to justify the choice to be dishonest. That’s if the choice to be dishonest is ever challenged.

“You love evil more than good and lies more than truth”, says the songwriter.