How Do I Experience God When I’m Avoiding Him Out of Shame?
Are you avoiding spending time with God because of something you've done? If so, here are a few suggestions.
At times, I’ve fallen into a tough cycle. Maybe I allowed my schedule to get too busy and pushed my time with God to an afterthought. Or I watched too many YouTube videos and beat myself up for wasting so much time. Perhaps you’ve been there.
When this happens, you’ll find that the very thing your soul needs the most—time with God—is the very thing you avoid. Why? Assuming you love Jesus, it’s likely because you’ve allowed guilt to play too large a motivating factor in your life.
Years ago, I interacted with a District Superintendent of a Canadian church conference. We were discussing a pastor who had just left his church, and the DS made this offhand comment. “You know Ezra,” he said, “that pastor was a nice guy. But he always used guilt sermons as the motivator to get people to change.”
For some reason, that line stuck with me, and it challenged me to rethink my approach to writing and speaking. I realized that too often, I would speak/write about ways God was working in my life but do so in a way that would naturally make listeners or readers feel guilty if they didn't have the same experience.
It also made me more aware of how I was too easily manipulated by guilt when it came to my relationship with God. Too often, I found that I spent time with him out of obligation rather than delight. That’s when I made two shifts that I’d encourage you to make as well.
Shift #1: Recognize How God Sees You
Instead of focusing on my shame, I started focusing on God’s goodness. Instead of always beating myself up when I fell short, I took a minute to see life from God's perspective.
Here’s a practical example. Have you ever felt guilty of falling asleep when you sit down to pray? You meant to spend 15-20 minutes in uninterrupted prayer but nodded off five minutes in. The natural guilt response is to beat yourself up and promise God you'll do much better. And there is some truth to this if it becomes a habit. But if you do this too much, you’ll quickly fall into the guilt cycle. I certainly have.
Then, one day, I came across a post from Scott Sauls, where he wrote: “Feel guilty falling asleep while praying? How do you feel when a child nods off in your lap? And how much more must your Heavenly Father feel about you when this happens? There. Feel better? You should!”[1]
Notice the pivot and how this shifts a negative into a positive. Sure, you can probably do better and be more disciplined with your schedule so that you don’t fall asleep during your prayer time out of habit. But God also sees the intent of your heart. He sees the 4 AM time with the kids, the extra tedious work project, and the extra effort you made to get dinner ready for your family, which contributed to your tiredness.
Sometimes, we look at all the instances of God judging people in Scripture (especially the Old Testament) and often overlook the context of the judgment. Yes, sometimes God brought down the hammer, but this was often after continued (sometimes generational) disobedience. But for those who sought after him, he was merciful. Need some reminders? Here are a few:
- Psalm 103:8-12: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. He will not always accuse us or be angry forever. He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
- Lamentations 3:22-23: “Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!”
- Ephesians 2:4-5: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!”
- Titus 3:4-5: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
- Micah 7:18-19: “Who is a God like you, forgiving iniquity and passing over rebellion for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not hold on to his anger forever because he delights in faithful love. He will again have compassion on us; he will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
