Overcoming Shame: A 9-Day Video Seriesናሙና

The Bible tells us that God created Adam and Eve for the purpose of having intimate relationships with him, and that in the beginning, “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25). Their nakedness was pure vulnerability, with no fear. Because of the unconditional acceptance they felt in their relationships with God and their lack of self-consciousness, they did not experience being less than God as painful evidence that they were worthless beings.

This was God’s original intent for us, to live in joyful relationship with him. The Westminster Catechism puts it this way: “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

Adam and Eve rejected their relationships with God when they decided they didn’t just want to have relationships with God; they instead wanted to be just like him. The notable thing here is that Adam’s story is our story. We all were created for joyful relationships with God and others, free from the shame-proneness that cripples our capacities for love and connection. But at some point the temptations of life bring insecurities that make us want something more.

Fearing that who we are and what we have are not enough, we decide to be our own gods and take matters into our own hands. Refusing to accept ourselves as we are, we strive to create defenses against the self-conscious feeling of shame. When we refuse to accept the sense of self that we were created for, a joyful relationship with God who is greater than us, we become painfully aware that we are inadequate to actually be God, and our sense of self starts to feel worthless in comparison.

As counselor and speaker John Bradshaw puts it, shame is the core and the consequence of the Fall. When being less than God becomes something painful that we want to escape, we become excruciatingly self-conscious and need to hide. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves” (Genesis 3:7).