Speaker Abi Stumvoll taught students at Bethel Church’s WorshipU school how shame has a way of making you believe something is “inherently wrong” with you. It makes you feel stuck, as if you can never change your mindset.
“Instead of ‘I said something stupid,’ shame is ‘I am something stupid,'” Stumvoll says. “Instead of ‘I looked at porn,’ it’s ‘I’m a pervert.’ All of a sudden, shame came in, and it wanted to identify us.”
Having battled with depression herself, Stumvoll emphasizes the importance of rejecting self-pity and fully embracing how much God loves us. She uses the story of Adam and Eve to portray the very first picture of shame in the history of humanity.
“The knowledge of good and evil means that, all of a sudden, they were able to judge themselves,” Stumvoll says. “See, it was God’s intent that we would never see a flaw in who we were. He never wanted us to eat from the tree—not as proof that we could be obedient, but because He never wanted us to know any separation from love. He never wanted us to ever have a doubt [and think] that something was wrong with us and that we would need to hide.”
For more teaching on breaking the chains of shame, watch the entire video here.
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