Story Matters Podcast
In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss the intersection between theology and psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their particular stories have shaped them.
Story Matters Podcast
29. From Success to Theology: Exposing Shame's Hidden Influence
In this episode, Ryan and Emily Baker unpack the subtle ways shame operates as rocket fuel for our accomplishments—from Michael Jordan fabricating opponents' trash talk to motivate himself, to the high-achieving Christian who serves tirelessly but never feels like enough. They explore how shame doesn't just make us feel inadequate; it actively drives us into cycles of performance that promise satisfaction but never deliver.
Most surprisingly, Ryan and Emily reveal how shame influences our theological preferences. Whether it's gravitating toward "worm theology" that reinforces our sense of worthlessness or embracing performance-based religion that gives us clear metrics for success, our understanding of God is often shaped by our unaddressed shame. They interact with common Christian phrases like "when God looks at you, He sees Jesus" that inadvertently reinforce the idea that God merely tolerates rather than delights in us.
The antidote is learning to distinguish between the crackling static of shame and the clear music of the gospel. This episode will help you recognize when shame is driving your actions and point you toward a relationship with God based on His kindness rather than your performance. This conversation is aimed at helping people break free from shame-driven success and religion.
Book references: "The Whole Christ" by Sinclair Ferguson, "Sonship" by Jack Miller, "Discipline of Grace" by Jerry Bridges
I've heard pastors say things like you're tore up from the floor up Like what. Welcome to the Story Matters podcast. I'm Ryan Baker.
Speaker 2:And I'm Emily Baker.
Speaker 1:We believe people grow and heal through understanding how our stories are rooted in God's redemptive story.
Speaker 2:We hope our conversations encourage you to engage your story and the world around you with a new lens.
Speaker 1:We're glad you're here. Welcome to episode three of season three. We are continuing a series on shame and, just to recap the first two, we really did locate shame as being something that was all the way back in the garden and it's incredibly foundational. It's the essence of our flesh, it's the language of our flesh. So if you haven't heard that, we encourage you to go there. In the next episode we picked up on this concept of a shame grandiosity cycle. The grandiosity is all the attempts, all the ways we live in this life, often really good ways, but not always trying to cover a deep sense of shame that we probably haven't even identified. So often we catch ourselves actually in the grandiosity like we're planning something, we're wishing something, we're hoping something. Not to say that's all wrong, but often when it's fueled by shame, it puts us on the wrong foot. It's a fool's errand, really, because it won't work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think when I hear the word shame and probably most everyone I know we think of a very negative like I'm horrible, I'm a bad person, I feel shame. You know, I kind of have my head hanging low and that is part of the cycle. But the other half of that cycle is don't feel that way, go, do something, get out of your shame. That's kind of the sneakiness of shame that we're trying to shed light on is that it actually isn't just something to make you feel bad, but it's actually meant to motivate you into some of the most successful things you've done. But then that doesn't satisfy because shame driving anything is still going to lead us back into shame.
Speaker 2:We really tried to separate out the two types of operating systems our lives can be. A part of it's going to lead us back into shame. We really tried to separate out the two types of operating systems our lives can be a part of. It's going to be shame grandiosity, like go, keep going, I feel bad, okay, feel better. Like this kind of our own methods, versus living out of the gospel and our identity in Christ and wanting to, yes, succeed, but less out of a fig leaf covering.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good recap and I have something new. I think what can be confusing and I think one of shame's goals is to cause confusion. I think of like grappling, or if you've ever heard of Brazilian jujitsu, the goal is to take the opponent to the ground so that size doesn't matter, etc. Like shame's job is to get you on the ground. And even in listening and thinking about shame we can become confused, unsure and something you just said really stuck out, something to remind ourselves around shame is it drives us to aloneness.
Speaker 1:In the garden, the serpent was able to convince Adam and Eve that God was not for them, that he was not good, and the alternative was they didn't go hang out with the serpent, they didn't go hang out with another group, they just basically became individuals, like alone. And so often in our grandiosity phase and in what we're going to talk about today, as we move into the ways shame can drive even some of our success and it can even be super influential in how we approach our theology what we're going to notice is a lot of that motion doesn't move us into true community with the triune, god and others, but rather it sort of gives us kind of bargaining capital, in whatever tribes we find ourselves. That sounds kind of complex.
Speaker 2:What does that mean? Bargaining, what'd you say?
Speaker 1:Capital Bargaining what'd you say? Capital bargaining chips? So like, for example, a dear friend of mine, very successful, would say very openly that oftentimes his bouts of genius or insider success came on the heels of great moments of shame in a different arena. So you have one arena where maybe you feel a certain amount of shame, whether it's your personal life or whatever, or just things coming out of childhood, but so you move into a place where you have gifting and there's this ability to grow and succeed. Well, the bargaining chips in that realm are very obvious, whether it's financial, just matrices of success. And so the point being that, oh, here comes so-and-so, who has these abilities, and that's how that person may fit into that tribe. That would be an example of a bargaining chip. We're always trying to figure out what do we contribute to this group? How do we fit into this group? So, even though it may look like community, oftentimes these tribes I'm using that term to mean a little bit differently than a community can really?
Speaker 1:our adherence to them can be based on certain rules, certain measurement certain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, measurements, that's what I hear you saying. Measurements in the sense of evaluation we talked about that last episode is that we're constantly living under a self-evaluation or a community evaluation. So, like how you just described, his motivation was, I feel shame. I've got to make up for that by being creative and being successful. And now I've one up to my one down, and that's the cycle I think we're trying to expose is are your successes just you living out of your identity in Christ and glorifying God, or are your successes an attempt at feeling better about yourself and staying in a group that you've decided you want to be a part of, whatever you know, your career or your peer group?
Speaker 1:And, as you're listening to this, there's a lot of complexity and it can be super tempting to go no, that's not really me, and move on.
Speaker 1:We would ask you to hang with us a little bit longer, try to hear what's being said and then do a little bit more of the hard work of searching why do I do what I do and what's motivating me to do what I do. And so just to kind of move us into this topic, you know, guilt is the felt sense that I've done something wrong. Good guilt is when I actually have right. Bad guilt is when I feel that way around something I haven't done, but shame. Shame is more of a not only a defining issue for me you, the person feeling it. I feel this way, but the implicit understanding is others feel this way. This is the way I'm perceived, this is the way I actually come across in this community, in this world. So the reason that's important is if my dominant sense of self, which may be at one point or another shame, is purely based on my perception of what people think of me, then often, when their views of me are good, it doesn't really matter what I've actually done.
Speaker 1:That's no longer my plumb line, and an example would be that we've talked about recently is you go and take a test, say in college and you get a 62. I mean, that's really bad. You got a 62. I think that's a D and you're upset. But then you find out that the professor is going to do this curve and you made an 89. You're excited. Why? Not because you actually did better, but because your perception, the way it's going to go down in history, the way others now would evaluate you and see you, is as an 89. And so, in other words, if you think about truth and what would be ideal, we should be able to go. Man, I really didn't know that material very well. And here's the point. That's an illustration. I love being graded on a curve. We love that kind of stuff. My point is we are more interested in what our surrounding group, whatever that is, and it's very hard to even define that how we're perceived in that world. We're often more interested in how we're perceived by that group than how we're actually doing.
Speaker 2:Okay, something came to me as you were talking. Now I think this ties in, but this is the trickiness of our we think differently. So when you just said, guilt is you know, like there can be real guilt and there needs to be real guilt when we've sinned. But it's meant to like stop an action, we stop, we turn, we repent. The process is that we are forgiven and the guilt is removed and we're restored, which goes back to a lot of our repair talk, Like it worked through its process.
Speaker 2:Shame, I think, is not meant to be stopped Like. I feel like shame. What you were saying is it's driving something, Like it's the unresolved guilt. So this may feel a little bit different, but I think it goes with what you're saying. If in my childhood I did something wrong and my parents saw that as a sin, let's talk through your guilt and let's restore you and forgive you and we talk through it and it's like a good, healthy, repaired environment. I no longer am going to live with the shame that I did that. I still could process that when it came up. But if my parents do not talk about it, I feel it. They just basically make me feel like I'm in the wrong but there's no repair process or there's no speaking about the forgiveness I need or whatever. I'm now living with the idea that I'm wrong. It's their perception of me, a little bit like what you're saying.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point. So in your scenario, let's assume you did something actually wrong and the way your parents dealt with it would be maybe a passive, aggressive, a silent treatment, kind of a furrowed brow, a scoff, maybe just the withholding of delight, whatever. And so you're feeling that Now what's crazy making is that's also how they act when you've done things that aren't wrong, that they just don't like. So, in other words, fill in the gaps with anything they wanted you to continue on with an instrument you chose to give up, and they do the same thing. The problem is now we're confused because we're feeling shame around things that we do wrong, which is not ideal. We're not saying that's ideal, but it's better than maybe, in some sense, the shame we feel when we actually did nothing wrong. And if you think about that into adulthood, that's the feeling you have. If a spouse doesn't greet you the way you expect, or a friend, normally you get a smile or a welcome and you don't. You've done nothing, but your body starts to go into this kind of scan.
Speaker 2:What have.
Speaker 1:I did. I forget something. You know we're activated because shame, shame's design is to go. Hey, you need to stay in this tribe. Figure this out. You've done something wrong, even when you haven't.
Speaker 2:Right. I think the confusion's a very important point you're making. There's a confusion when you're a child and you don't really know if the parents are mad at you or not, or if they end up letting it go Like was that a wrong thing? If there's not clarity, that's very similar to how it feels when you're in a class and the professor may or may not have a curve Am I in good standing or am I not in good standing? Did I earn it or did I not? Did I do something wrong? That is all ambiguity and confusion, very shame based. I think all of us to some degree want to get out of that feeling, and so that drives our successes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's a great segue because so often our again rocket fuel into our efforts of success are really often fueled by escape. The way it shows up usually is the success doesn't bring true satisfaction. It's very short-lived. There's this sense that I need another, I need another. It's almost like it's creating more pressure.
Speaker 1:So, for example, I remember watching the Netflix documentary on Urban Meyer. He's one of the greater football coaches, at least in the last 20 to 30 years, and he has done a lot of work with mental health. But one of the things he said was that literally the night they won, I think they must have flown back. I don't know how it all went down. He I'm going to probably if you've watched it I may not get the details right but like at 2 am or something crazy, 3 am, goes back to his office on campus and starts mapping out the next season. Now he's saying he's saying that story he's telling on himself. He's saying look at how sick I was. And yet I don't think that's far out.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of us like when the removal of shame is our goal. It's the reason we try to succeed. That's why you get into these patterns of never enough money. You know it's like I need to earn more or the business isn't large enough. We need to grow it. There's this kind of growth mindset which is, again, that's not in and of itself wrong, but so often it's fueled by this desperate need to keep the forward momentum. So so often shame, unaddressed, unnamed, can really fuel seasons of success.
Speaker 2:Did he say he had shame that?
Speaker 1:was driving that, or was he?
Speaker 2:just saying I was so sick I couldn't relax.
Speaker 1:That story was. He burned out and, I think, came to some deep realizations, began pursuing counseling and stuff. I don't know that he used the word shame, but certainly the language was it wasn't enough.
Speaker 2:I wasn't enough. That's what I always heard with documentaries. Is you hear Super Bowl rings certain?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Tom Brady, after, I think, the second or third Super Bowl, says is this all there is? So again you get there and it's not enough. Another example that falls a little bit in this category is in the last dance documentary on the 98 Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan. They tell a story from one of his earlier seasons and there was some situation where there was a rookie who played better than Michael Jordan in a game.
Speaker 1:It was a situation where after this game which that rookie did really well and I believe that team won the Bulls were going to play them again the next night. And so Michael Jordan says to some people in the locker room that rookie said some really harsh, made a really derogatory or harsh diss or whatever, and Michael was going to show him. And then, true to form, in that second game, michael like performed stunningly and the rookie barely scored at all. And it comes out later that was fabricated, that that rookie had never made that comment. Michael made that up and they cut to the present day so let's call that 2020 or whenever. They're filming Michael's sitting there being interviewed and they ask him about it and he laughs and says yeah, I made it up. And his point is like I'm so driven that I will create false narratives. That could feel like shame. He didn't use that language To drive me to succeed. And it just shows again like he needed extra rocket fuel for that game.
Speaker 2:Well, like he needed to hear that this guy was actually saying like really rude things, trash-talking him, kind of being hard to make him play better.
Speaker 1:And I know we're getting deep in the weeds here, but I actually had downloaded a clip from that where it's interviewing his father who this interview.
Speaker 1:his dad had passed away already, but this was an older interview and the story was about how Michael's older brother and the dad would work on cars and Michael would try to get involved and they just essentially like even in that interview now that Michael's famous, his dad's being interviewed you know he's amazing he recalls that story and says yeah, he he's worthless with, or something I wish I had the exact wording.
Speaker 2:Like his dad was saying about Jordan, he's worthless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he couldn't do that. Don't give him a wrench or whatever, Just something that was still, even in that interview, hurtful, Like I remember. If wincing cut back to Michael who's watching that on his iPad that's how they were doing this documentary and the pain on his face and he makes a comment after that. That that's what drove me to be who I was and all of, if you know Michael Jordan, you know, yeah, he was 6'6 and he had talent, but his drive so I think that's an example again of how deep rooted shame is often at play in our and the goals and the pursuits we have and I highly doubt anyone listening to our podcast is one of the greats, like a michael jordan, I mean.
Speaker 1:Sorry, maybe you are, but I think the world champion quilter send us an email or a text and let us know if we're wrong.
Speaker 2:If you're a great, you're. I'm just thinking, okay, that's not really our audience. And yet I think this is a great segue into how shame drives our Christianity, because we may not be the Michael Jordan of basketball, but we sure are going to try to be the Michael Jordan of our church. You know what I'm saying and can I tell in myself a shame motivating story. This is embarrassing and for anyone listening to this that knew me in college, let me just say I'm sorry, but you know, here I am a young Christian girl. I want to be the most caring and I want to sit with people and I want to be the one that's always available for those late night talks, like I wanted to be the best Christian. That's what I could be. That was not because I wanted to glorify God, that was because I wanted to be someone.
Speaker 1:And so here's the wrench. Listeners, can you hear the contempt? You are speaking of yourself as rubbish, and yet what we would both agree on is yes, I believe everything you just said was true, unbeknownst to your conscious mind, but there's a story behind it of what was going on the first 18 years of life that was setting you up to think you had to be in that role. The invitation is for all of us. When we do this work and we start to see things, it's not to condemn that would be. The irony of shame is like aha, we'll condemn you and make you feel bad about this. It's really an invitation to kindness that you are now free. We are now free to really look at things and say why was I so driven in that endeavor? Your main point of that story is that for you and undoubtedly for many of our listeners, I can be the good Christian. Or I can roll into that church, that Christian organization, and I can shine, or I can bring my gifts to bear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think this gets into kind of the shame-driven religion that can look so good and we say all the right theological points. I'm justified by faith. I don't believe in works, righteousness, and yet my actions and I've been able to see that in my repentance that was my identity with my peer group and therefore really my God. I probably hadn't understood that God loved me, but I was really going to work hard to be accepted and loved in my community. It's like do not put me to shame.
Speaker 1:And so what I hear is a bit of a maybe a trajectory in your journey, which both of us were highly influenced by Sonship and love it to this day a discipleship program, Jack and Rosemary Miller and Paul Miller and very much focused on our adoption and the power of what that means to be sons and daughters, and you've shared many times that. When Rosemary shares that she is a recovering Pharisee, that spoke to you and I'm curious now if we would add that you've learned that you weren't just a Pharisee, you weren't just trying to be better than people, but you were trying to, in light of what we're talking about today, find ways to not feel the shame that was lurking, unnamed silently like carbon monoxide in the soul that was fueling a lot of those choices.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the concept of being adopted and being free as the child and not having to work like a slave, all of that New Testament language really came to life for me in that era of my life. But I think we watched Sonship free me of that. But also it has a little bit of a bent towards this depravity of like you know, you're worse than you think kind of mentality that we love. Jack still to this day is one of our heroes of the faith. But I saw you really grab a hold of what we would maybe call worm theology. I don't know that's kind of a term we use.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a. That's a term that I first heard in seminary. So when we had already gone through sonship and other things, I just thought, man, this is the greatest thing. And then I started finding people who weren't as excited about it and it did bring up some debates. But I remember one professor who absolutely loves the gospel he introduced me to Wounded Heart was huge in union with Christ. But in a kind of a private conversation after class he's the one that said oh, I'm concerned that it has worm theology and I would have none of that. I was like no, I need to know how awful I am, because and often that what was said is cheer up your worse than you think.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the Jack Miller quote, that then he says but you're more loved and adopted. You're more loved than you ever realized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a beautiful point, but at best it's problematic for some of us who suffer from this, like I think I'm horrible and you're not telling me. I'm worse than I think.
Speaker 2:Right, like for me. It was good for me to hear, as that self-righteous, pharisaical college girl who thought I'm going to be the most Christian in this group to hear actually you have nothing to offer.
Speaker 1:The problem here's the challenge, though the point he's making is it catches you right, like if I already think I'm bad, which is, I think, the audience of that quote I already think I'm so bad and messed up, and all this I'm an orphan To say cheer up kind of raises your kind of brow. Well, cheer up about this. And then he does deliver the answer that you may be worse but you're also more loved. But what I think it's where I've struggled with it theologically is and I've gone back and forth and it's not a theological statement, it's a kind of a catchphrase is that the gospel teaches that Paul is very clear we are a new creation. In fact, in Romans 8, he says nothing good dwells within, that is, in my flesh. He's very quick to say I'm not talking about the true me, I'm talking about the old man the old nature.
Speaker 1:So to say cheer up, you are worse, I think can be problematic because it's a categorical like all of you is worse. And I think we have to hold to the truth and be vigilant with the fact that, yes, while I have flesh and a sin nature, I also have the Holy Spirit and I am completely loved and completely clean and that is my new nature. And, furthermore, shame is the language of the old nature and it's always lurking. And I want to even add one more caveat that even a person who's not redeemed has glory. We do believe in total depravity. We believe in what is maybe better termed pervasive depravity, and not everybody. We don't expect anyone listening to agree with everything, but nonetheless we also believe in being made in the image of God, the imagio Dei, and that means that even after the fall, there's glory.
Speaker 1:Jesus himself took a body. In Romans 8, paul says he took on the likeness of sinful flesh, in other words, a body that can get sick. He did not have sin dwelling in him like we do, but he had a body like ours. And because of common grace, because of being made in the image of God and because of all these things, there is glory, and I don't think that was something I held on to. I think so much of my own story and experience with shame. I was ready to shed every square inch and feeling and anything before, whatever the date. There's a point in my history.
Speaker 2:Like conversion.
Speaker 1:And then for me it wasn't even that. But yeah something, let's just say senior year, high school, everything before that's rubbish, get Like conversion, sonship, right. I'm saying this is how I think my own shame gravitated and morphed, that teaching, and I have to do a lot of work. For me the hard part is, whereas one person might think I don't know that I have anything wrong with me, I'm kind of the opposite by nature. I'm like I don't think I have anything right with me.
Speaker 2:Right. Like my shame, grandiosity cycle in college was still working pretty well, the grandiosity I was succeeding, at least in that season to some degree. I think what we're trying to get at is that there is a two-part sentence that would describe who we are in Christ, that we're sinner, saints, or that we are broken and redeemed, or that we've experienced like the sufferings of Christ and the resurrection of Christ, and some of us fall off too far on one or the other.
Speaker 2:I was kind of striving for this, like always doing good. You were wrestling more with the shame of like I don't think I am good, so you were drawn to this message of you're so broken.
Speaker 1:Yeah, part of the testimony for me would be in college I was going to move into youth ministry and I'm like, oh my goodness. So I start reading every book on self-discipline, the Christian versions of them I could name the titles you've heard of them and with each sentence, each paragraph, each book, a weight on my shoulders was getting heavier and heavier. And it was actually Jerry Bridges' book, the Disciplines of Grace and then Sonship, that set me free in so many ways. It was so important and I still value that.
Speaker 1:I think what's happening is in my sanctification and journey. At a particular time when I was able and ready, I've begun to learn new truths that go along with those truths, and that is that not everything wrong with me was my fault, not everything I felt I caused myself, and that is that not everything wrong with me was my fault, not everything I felt I caused myself. And that can be the dominant message in the church is if you have a problem, if you have a sin pattern, if you have anything going wrong, you most likely are involved or you're their cause.
Speaker 1:And we don't really have language often or at least not until maybe in the recent years around trauma, and again, trauma equals shame, right when something happens, traumatic shame is always there, always shaping us in that moment and if it's not addressed, what we're trying to say is, as we think about the theologies we're drawn to, it's really important to ask ourselves what am I using it for? What's drawing me to it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you resonated with this message that you're a broken, sinful person in need of God's grace. You're worse than you think. That leaned for you like, yeah, I've always known that In your childhood there was not a lot of naming of your glory, there was a lot of shame. You've now unpacked that to realize to name your glory is way harder than to name where you're sinful. And this is the balance that we think is the gospel walking on your feet versus stilts is that we do have flesh and we do have glory and both are needed in our theology.
Speaker 2:And if we will be aware of how shame can drive us to good works and good things, but shame's actually the driving force, then we will hear with a little bit more of a tuned ear the language of our churches and our songs and our sermons out there that are really using shame to get us back into kind of a godly lifestyle. And that's, I think, the very tricky part of shame that we think is actually spiritual abuse that we could be living out of this, this idea that God is love and Jesus died on the cross and because of his goodness he has covered you and you're now saved, you're safe, but he doesn't love and delight in you. It's kind of a distant like. He may have done that because he's good and loving, but he doesn't like me. There's nothing about me that's special. He did that because that's his nature, so I'm in, but I kind of live in the shadows of the shame of I don't know if he loves me, but I'll just keep doing this thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, know if he loves me, but I'll just keep doing this thing. Yeah, another. There was a breakthrough moment a few years ago around this topic where I think highlights what you're saying, where and I remember actually years ago in seminary talking to a counselor about it and then a long time later coming to it again but there's a common statement that again, is true in many ways, but not completely true, and here's what it is when God looks at you, he sees Jesus.
Speaker 2:Now please.
Speaker 1:That's exciting. Except that, if again, I'm not saying this is what's being said, but what is often heard and I've had a lot of clients say the same thing is so he doesn't really like me and so I'm thankful. Don't get me wrong, I'm in, but what it does is it contributes again because of our own wounding. And so what we're just saying, listeners, is, pay attention to that. The breakthrough for me just came when I read a great book I highly recommend by Sinclair Ferguson, the Whole Christ. That said that God loved me before time and Jesus came to rescue me. And again, I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of your theology, but just understand that message lands because it's in the scriptures. Jesus says my sheep hear my voice. God did seek him to save his own. So what that means is I have the righteousness of Christ, the legal covering of.
Speaker 1:Christ right, but God loves you, he loves the person and he loves you. From conception on we always quote, and people have to quote, Psalm 139,. You knit me in my mother's womb. The point is I had to learn to recover through story work that I have good things and I have things to offer and I brought goodness and that began to help shame dissipate in my own life and again the recovery for me and for any of us around this topic is moving into partnership or union with the Lord, because the idea and again the image that comes to mind is the prodigal son. He wanted to go alone. He left home to go by himself and his return, which is repentance, is not just a 180 of behavior, it's a 180 from where he was coming back home, and the father greets him and hugs him and they have this embrace and the celebration is he's home, he's back, we're one again, and so that is the antidote to shame is like I am in community.
Speaker 2:That the father, delighted in seeing his son return, was actually watching for him.
Speaker 1:He didn't have his arms crossed and make him say a few things. Theologically, he ran to him with tears in his eyes.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think this is where I would ask our listeners how do you view God? How have you viewed him in your past? How do you view him now you just mentioned like kind of a stern arms crossed. Can you give me some theological points or show me your fruit in keeping with repentance? How about a coach that loves to yell in your face and motivate you to do better next time? You made such a mess by leaving and squandered our money and you know, kind of like I'm going to shame you back into better behavior.
Speaker 2:I think if we're not careful, the language around oh, that was a great sermon. I felt so convicted by it. That is so common. But that's actually saying I feel horrible. Convicted. Is actually a judge saying you're guilty. Convicted is I'm guilty. Now, that's all important. It is important for us to repent and see our sin and turn away from it and come back to the Father. The prodigal is a beautiful story of that. I think what I'm saying is do we love that feeling of like getting yelled at to motivate us back up on our stilts?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you and I are both aware of kind of a tendency in some of the circles where especially the gospel has become more popular in the vernacular which it should. You'll hear people say I'm so broken, I'm broken.
Speaker 1:And the truth is, yeah, I'm not disagreeing with that, but it's again, listen to the tone, listen to the way it's used and then often, the next time someone tells you they're broken but say, can you give any particulars? Like we don't want to do that, we'll just. In other words, we love the largeness of the word and I've heard pastors say things like you're tore up from the floor up Like what. And the problem is and we've actually had people tell us this is it creates a burden and a weight that, again, that's not the language of Jesus, that's not the language of the gospel, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because when you just mentioned the prodigal son returning, the father is looking for him and delighting in him. That's Jesus's story to portray how the father looks at us. If we have the mindset that we don't really matter. God just saves his people, and I'm one of them, but he doesn't necessarily delight in me, in my particular life. That's a false view of God and I think that you will hear this also around. Christian culture is if you're complimented, or if you give a compliment or you hear someone receive a compliment, they will either quickly dismiss it and say, well, you don't really know, you know my thought, life, or trust me, I'm not that great or they will give God all the glory. It's not me, it's all Jesus, and that takes out the particular glory that God delights in, and I think that is a very important piece of how we don't want shame to motivate us is that God delights particularly in you, ryan, and in me.
Speaker 2:And when you were attracted to worm theology of hey, you're worse than you think, hey, you're broken we can now name in your childhood, the unspoken message was you don't really matter. Like a lot of ambivalent attachment, a lot of avoidant attachment was going on. So you carried in your body the belief that you don't really matter, but you're still a son. And I think that's the theology which we really careful that we don't really matter but you're still a son. And I think that's the theology which we really careful that we don't draw ourselves to and be like, yeah, I'm just barely in but I don't matter. And I think it was one of the biggest challenges for you when you started doing story work at the Allender Center, when they wanted to name your glory, and that felt very uncomfortable to you for many reasons, but one of them was the religious language has been no, no, that's boastful or prideful. And so I think we're wanting to regain people being able to say the two truths of the story I'm a sinner, I've been redeemed, I have glory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's really good and I struggled going back into my story. I struggled with memory, I struggled with finding any real specific stories and largely because I think part of my survival was shedding and living in hypervigilance. But I just want to bring this back to. I don't believe my theological views have changed in this area as much as I'm able to tease out some areas where my own story had tainted what would be considered great theology and what is I would call it great. I mean, one of the highlights of my growth was understanding that I'm the beloved and that's needed. But I just want to come into this idea that if I could get really practical to our listeners, we're really trying to learn in this series to pay attention. Again, we've used this illustration before. But you have the AM FM knob trying to find that station that has the songs or whatever, and it's hard to find and it's crackly. And then all of a sudden, there it is, there's that song. We're trying to do that with trying to find the music of the gospel.
Speaker 1:But we're also trying to find the language of shame, because it's super hard to find and my challenge to you listeners is learn to pay attention. We've done a whole episode on paying attention. What you pay attention to, what does it feel like in your body when shame is present? What are the ways your accusations are coming? Do you get action oriented? What happens? Do you start planning out your day? What is it that gets kicked?
Speaker 1:And one of the things that I've been really working to do is stop myself when grandiosity kicks in and actually go back to the truths of one of the places I love is Psalm 27,. That one thing I've asked of the Lord, that which I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and gaze upon his beauty and inquire in his temple. And I know we've used that in this podcast, but that has all the components of safety. That's one of the first things with shame is we feel unsafe, and that unsafety is I'm going to be cast out, I'm going to be put to shame, I'm going to be sent out of my tribe, I'm going to be found out, whatever. So safety in the house.
Speaker 1:Then love I'm gazing upon his beauty, like, not like his physical appearance as much as just who he is and who we are together, and then inquiring is the can I learn and you actually taught me that. I know I'd heard it but like just glazed over and you really brought that to my attention. Emily was am I safe? Am I loved? Can I learn? I think that can I learn? Can I flourish? Can I engage this conversation with people? Can I engage this day? Well, but that will come when we begin to tune into both of those stations right, or those frequencies. What's the language of the gospel we need to hear and what's the language of shame that we need to also identify?
Speaker 2:I love that analogy about finding the song on the radio and the crackling, because that clear song is God's delight in you, his love for you and his kindness towards you, his mercy and his grace, and that crackling is he just tolerates you. You're on the brink of getting cast out. You got to keep working. Yes.
Speaker 1:And the evidence of that second one I love this is just to kind of bring it back is again effort of success. All the ways we go, often, even in religion. I'm going to read more of my Bible and underline more things, I'm going to go to more things, I'm going to contribute more, and that's fine. Those are again. The behaviors are great, but what we're urging is notice if they're blanketing like fig leaves, since feelings of shame and that frequency that needs to be uncovered.
Speaker 2:Right. So the gospel invites us to restoration, not performance. Romans 2, 4 says we don't want to presume on God's kindness and his patience, so we don't just stay where we are right. We don't. We're not saying we shouldn't have guilt of sin. Don't hear what we're not saying. All of us have reasons to turn and come back to the Father every single day. But it's his kindness that's meant to lead us to repentance. It is not his scolding, his yelling, his shaming, any of the tactics we think are going to get us moving again. A it's kindness, b it's towards restoration, not more performance. Amen.
Speaker 1:Thanks again for joining us today. If you have questions or thoughts about our conversation, we'd love to hear from you. We can be reached through our website at storymattersinitiativecom, and from there you can also find our Instagram and our Facebook. If you are interested in doing individual or group work, we'd love to discuss that with you as well.