Have you ever done something and later realized that your actions broke relationships? How about the things you did to break relationship with yourself through the ways you chose to govern your life poorly—your finances, your body, your mind, your mental and emotional health, and your spirit? Often the actions that break our relationships rise from our shame, our sense of unworthiness. In our attempts to cover our nakedness, we pull back from the ones who love us. We hide, refusing to get help, and people get hurt.
Shame leaves us standing alone—separated from one another. It causes us to lash out, then tells us to cover our sin, to deny it and defend it and spin it. And on the flip side, shame leads us to craft armor to protect our hearts from more disengagement and separation. This is what it looks like to sew a protective covering of fig leaves, to believe the foundational lie that this sin, ours or theirs, is confirmation that we are, indeed, worth nothing behind the fig leaves.
Reflect:
Read Genesis 3:1–13. When have you followed this pattern in your own life: sin leading to shame, hiding, and attempts at self-protection?
Pray:
Spend time in quiet confession, humbly bringing your sin before God and accepting God’s grace and forgiveness.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
Church movements need magnetic leaders. But the best leaders need more than charm.
After this week’s UMC votes on LGBTQ issues, African Methodists should join American conservatives in the new Global Methodist denomination.
