Your Shame is Safe with God

God doesn’t expose your shame—He covers it.

My spiritual father, Dudley Hall, in his shame-busting book Grace Works, tells about a baptismal candidate in an old rural church who was preparing for his immersion when, suddenly, he was exposed. The old timey church had a curtain to the side of the pulpit platform where baptismal candidates could disrobe and put on a baptismal gown. Unfortunately, as the poor man was disrobing behind the curtain, the woman being baptized before him slipped. As she reached out in an attempt to steady herself, she grabbed the curtain to the men’s dressing area.

There, in all his nakedness, stood the baptismal candidate who in panic clutched the nearest covering—a straight-backed chair. Thankfully, an usher ran to the back of the room and turned off the lights.

After ample time for the man to dress, the usher turned the lights back on and there was the man—still clutching the chair! Uncertain when the lights might come back on, the poor man just held on to the only covering he had!

The fear of being stripped naked makes us hide all the more stubbornly.

But here’s some good news—though Adam and Eve broke God’s law and introduced sin into a perfect world, God didn’t yank off their fig leaves.

Instead, He gave them a better set of clothes.

God made leather garments for the ashamed couple. Notice it well—the first covering for shame required shed blood. Fig leaves fade. Animal skins last longer.

But God had a more permanent covering in the making.

Jesus came not only to pay the price for your sin but also to become the covering for your shame.

The more that you trust Jesus to cover your shame, the less energy you have to spend trying to cover it yourself. God has no interest in making you more ashamed—He came and died to take the shame OFF you. And that’s the Gospel!