There seems to be many people who are announcing that they are ashamed of how they were made. Whether it be the color of their skin or who their ancestors were, it doesn’t make a difference. By the same token, there are those who take pride in their lineage, as if they were personally responsible for it.
Shame and pride are two sides of the same coin. It focuses attention on the individual and not on God.
You see, God made us perfect in his sight and that is the only vision that is really important. Whether you are one color or another, regardless of where you were born and who your forefathers were, God made you just as you are.
There is no shame and there is no pride in this for an individual. It is what it is. It is the work of the hand of God and it is good.
I will not be ashamed of my background but I will not take pride in it, either. There was a point in my life when I let things of the world dictate who I was. I carved my niche in life based on what society thought of me.
Honestly, it didn’t think much of me. My parents were born in poverty and I and my family didn’t have money or live in the best parts of town. I was ashamed that I had so few clothes (one pair of pants, two shirts and a pair of sandals) to my name.
I was ashamed of so much of my life but at the same time, I took way too much pride in my intellect. I could run rings around most people and did so for the fun of it. Looking back, if there was shame to be had, it was based on my pride.
However, when life fell apart for me, it was not my background and intellect that brought me down. It was my spiritual debasement that led me into all kinds of problems and sorrows.
When I had come to the end of my line and, rather than falling into pieces completely, I reached out to the hand that was being held out to me. There was someone who told me that he would save me and all I had to do was grab his hand and accept his help.
His name is Jesus and he brought me up from the depths of despair. He looked at me in all of my sin and still thought I was beautiful. He gave me a way to have my sin washed away, so that my shame could leave me and I could stand before God, pure and whole, clean for the first time in my life.
The shame that I should have felt, prior to meeting Jesus, was about the inside me and not the outside. It was how I chose to spend my life and where I let my thoughts lead me that were the problem.
Anyone who is focusing on their outside or that of someone else, is avoiding their true failings. They will point here and there to keep from seeing the truth. The truth is that they are completely responsible for their own sin. No one else has made them a sinner. If someone forces sin upon you, it isn’t your sin, it is theirs. Even so, we all sin and we all know it.
To talk about shame or pride is not what God wants from us. He wants us to love each other as we are. He wants a relationship with us. There is only one way to get to that point and that is through the salvation that Jesus offers. He is the only truth and the only way to reconciliation with God.
Before pointing out shame of others, look at your own spiritual situation. If you are not saved by Jesus, then you are spiritually dead to God. Once you are saved and living the life that Jesus showed to us, you will look at others differently.
You will not shame people, you will love them. You can love them because Jesus loved you in the midst of your sin and he loves everyone equally.
Psalm 139:13-16
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.