Disempowering Shame
How do you deal with trauma or tragedy? The question I place before you is an important one, both in light of your life pre-twenty-twenty—because “life under the sun”comes with challenges simple and life-altering—and in light of everything we have navigated as people since twenty-twenty alone—r.i.p. Kobe, civility, security, financial predictability etc. Unfortunately, trauma and tragedy can push us to do things we never imagined we would do, or at the very least, something that seemed far outside our character. And when that happens, the associated shame can be almost as crippling as the original event or events themselves.
It would be inappropriate in this setting to go into much detail. Still, because I strive to be a vulnerable and transparent person, I can share that I have a childhood trauma that I refused to really face or even vocalise for years. It haunted me. It made me question my identity and even my future. It pushed me to do things to try and cover the shame and pain of the trauma, which only invited more shame.
I imagine some, if not all of you, can relate at some level. In Noah's story, a man so famous Russell Crowe played him in a movie, we find a similar connection. Though Hollywood did an unfortunate disservice to the story—rock monster anyone—Noah's story is still incredibly complicated, more so than any of us have probably imagined. He was a person with genuine challenges to his life, emotional health, mental health and faith.
Even though our trauma or tragedy pushes us to do things we never imagined we would do, even then, we are not the sum of our poorest choices.
You likely know the story of The Flood, even if you think it is fictional. The writer of Genesis tells us that God rescues Noah and his family in an Ark. Three years after that rescue, Noah has figured out how to make wine. Noah drinks the wine he has made, gets drunk, takes off all his clothes, and passes out face-up in his tent. This plot twist left me with questions for so many years. Imagine… God has just delivered you from a great tragedy. You and your family have been rescued. You have been delivered! Why are you getting drunk? Why are you passing out naked?
If I may… we often overlook the trauma of deliverance. For those who grew up in church, you have likely heard this story repeatedly preached the same way—God wiped out the world but spared His faithful servant Noah!
Isn't God good?
He will deliver you!
He will rescue you!
He will save you!
All you have to do is trust Him!
And all of that is true… except no one told us that sometimes, maybe even often, there is still trauma associated with being delivered from tragedy and that trauma can push us to do things we never imagined we would do or act so far outside of our character we are unrecognisable.
So here we have in Genesis, Noah, the man who believed God enough to build a boat in the desert, is drunk and naked and passed out in his tent. Why? I suspect that the trauma associated with his deliverance had finally caught up to him over the nearly three years since the Ark.
You can take yourself there, yes? Everything you have ever known wiped out in forty days and forty nights? People. Places. Memories. Gone. We often imagine the ancient world as this undeveloped hellscape, but it was not. Jump forward in Genesis and read about the tower humans built to the sky, partly to protect themselves from the possibility of another flood. So put yourself in Noah's sandals. Uncles. Aunts. Cousins. Friends. Your favourite restaurant. The spot where you had your first kiss. Government. Civilisation as you knew it… gone. Getting drunk and passing out sounds like a fine idea.
Trauma and tragedy can push us to do things we never imagined we would do, or at the very least, things that seemed far outside of our character. And when that happens, the associated shame can be almost as crippling as the original event or events themselves. Nakedness became associated with shame for Noah and all humans following the Fall recorded in Genesis three. Shame.
And whether it is getting drunk and passing out or some other form of acting out as we try to manage our trauma or tragedy, shame is always the feeling that follows. Noah's story reveals to us both the ubiquity of pain and shame in the human experience and the willingness of God to still move toward us and work through us to do the remarkable.
At one point in my early twenties, I was so overwhelmed by the cycle of shame-acting out-shame that I was convinced neither God nor this world had much use for me. Gratefully, I was eventually met with the truth of God's nature—He loves and never gives up. Hopefully, this will not offend, but when I had that revelation, I went and got a tattoo on my back; it is the Greek word for redemption, which means bought to keep. I was no longer a slave to shame.
Recently my friend Matt Adair shared with me three inescapable realities about shame:
Shame is in all of us.
We are all afraid to talk about shame.
The less we talk about shame, the more control it has over us.
I believe each of those things to be true, both from my experience and from years of walking with others. And the most unfortunate aspect of shame, and what it does to our view of our worth, is we think shame and pain remove our capacity for the remarkable. We do. We reduce ourselves and our usefulness in this world to the sum of our lowest moments, worst behaviour, or most shameful memory, but that is not true of you or me, and Noah's story teaches us that.
If God is God, He knew Noah would get drunk, strip and pass out after He was delivered from the flood, but He still chose him to do something remarkable. He still chose him and his family to be the family from which the entire human race is descended—remarkable!
Shame is powerful, but it is not all-powerful.
The good news we have in Jesus is that through Jesus, God covers our shame and releases us to do the remarkable—if we let Him. So the question turns to you now… will you let Him? Will you let God meet you, cover you, and release you to do what only you can do in this world? Will you take this moment to take shame's power? Will you trust that God has made you more and called you to be more than the sum of your lowest moments? Where and how you apply, this is left to you. I only know my shame; I cannot know yours. But here is what I do know, God is desirous and ready to meet you in it and show you Who He is and what He has for you on the other side of it.
Here is your invitation… will you take it?
If you would like to hear more of Noah’s story, and how to break free from shame, click here and watch the message The Magnificent Seven: The Drunk