The Father on the Other Side of Your Shame

In the garden, before the fall, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. After they ate from the wrong tree, they were naked and ashamed.

What changed? Not their bodies. Not their circumstances. Not even God's disposition toward them.

What changed was their perception—their belief about themselves, about each other, and about God. And that shift in belief led to the very first act of human disconnection: they hid from the One who loved them most.

This is the enemy's strategy. It hasn't changed in thousands of years. And we keep falling for it.

The Identity Crisis We All Face

In the garden, there was an identity crisis. The same one we all face.

The enemy is so crafty that he got Adam and Eve to question their own identity—who they were, their value. But he didn't stop there. He also made them question God: "God's holding out on you. If you eat from that tree, you'll be like Him, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5, NIV).

Wait. What's the problem with that? They were already made in His image and likeness.

So the enemy got them to believe, "I must not be enough the way I am. I must be missing something. I must be deficient. I have to do something to become who I should be."

Sound familiar?

The way Genesis could capture in three chapters—five pages—what happens to all of us, you know it's supernaturally written. This is the story that's common among all humanity.

The Shift from Unity to Division

They used their own wisdom. They saw the fruit was good for food and could make them wise, pleasing to the eye. So they ate it.

And then? Something shifted.

Before, they were naked and unashamed. Now they're naked and ashamed. They hear the sound of the Lord coming to walk with them in the cool of the day—because He had an intimate relationship with them—and instead of turning to Him and saying, "Oh my gosh, I made a mistake," what do they do?

They run and hide in shame. "I'm afraid of You."

Fear. Shame. And then when God starts questioning them, there's blame.

"The woman You put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it" (Genesis 3:12, NIV).

The woman says, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate" (Genesis 3:13, NIV).

The power that the couple had to take dominion was their unity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in union, distinctly different but not separate. Just as we were supposed to be. Distinctly different but not separate.

And so if our power comes from our unity, then what is the enemy's one tactic?

Disconnection.

Disconnect us from ourselves. Disconnect us from each other. And disconnect us from Him.

Do you see that tactic hasn't changed?

How We Partner with the Enemy

The problem is that we partner with the enemy thinking we're doing the right thing, and we disconnect from people.

We hide in shame. We don't want you to see the real us, so we try to pretend to be something we're not. Or we feel like we have to be somebody we're not, so we strive to achieve something so that you'll approve of us.

I spent an hour this morning getting ready because I don't care what anybody thinks. Oh Lord, I didn't just lie or manipulate, did I?

The enemy has no power over us without our agreement. None.

He had no power to shove that fruit down their throats. He had to lie and manipulate and make them believe a lie. And the problem is we don't know when we're being played. So we believe a lie and we think it's true.

We believe we should yell at the broken. Or that we should hide from them.

But we're in a ditch when we do that. We're being manipulated by the enemy when we do that. And we pull away from the ones who need us the most.

The Spiritual Battle

We are in a spiritual battle. The battle is spiritual. There are enemy forces that actually work together in strategic groups.

The spirit of shame works with the spirit of fear, which works with the spirit of chaos, which uses lying and manipulation to control us. There's a whole host of them.

But they all have that one strategy: They battle our thoughts in order to get us to agree. They have no power unless we agree.

The battlefield is in the mind, but the territory they're fighting over is the heart.

The Lord is after your heart. Always. In the beginning, why two trees? Because it had to be a love relationship. He had to have your heart. We connect with each other heart to heart. We connect with Him heart to heart.

It's always about the heart.

Proverbs says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7, NKJV). If I believe I'm loved, I'm going to feel loved. If I believe I'm distant and being rejected, I'm going to feel distant and rejected.

Our heart is our core. It's our soul. It's our inner man.

The Dominion We Forgot

We have the dominion of the earth that the enemy wants. And if you look around, it looks like he has it.

But whose fault is that? It's our dominion.

And in case we had forgotten it, Jesus made sure we got it back. We cannot believe that what Adam did in the garden is more powerful than what Jesus did on the cross.

But the enemy gets us to believe those lies. So we live in shame. Or we live in unforgiveness—there's a big one. The enemy gets a hook in through unforgiveness. How much does the New Testament talk about unforgiveness? Because it gives access to the enemy in our life.

We end up putting on our masks, putting on an avatar, walling ourselves off. And if our power comes from our connection, you can't connect with my avatar. You can't connect with my mask, with who I'm pretending to be.

You can only connect with the real me.

And authenticity is vulnerable. To be vulnerable takes courage. And it takes risk. And it's what we're called to do to live the Christian life—warts and all.

You Can't Heal What's Not Wrong

I can't tell you how many times in inner healing ministry, somebody will share a story about something horrible that happened to them, and I'll say, "I'm so sorry that happened to you."

And what do you think their response is?

"That's okay."

They've had to make it be okay to survive. But it was not okay.

You can't forgive something that was okay. And they need to release forgiveness because the enemy's holding them to that pain, holding them to that trauma, holding them captive.

I can't be forgiven. I can't be washed clean of something that's not wrong. I have to be able to say, "Lord, I'm sorry. I repent for having hidden and ignored the problem because I didn't know what to do."

You know what to do, Lord. Forgive me. Start with me. Clean my house.

Shame: The Fear and Cause of Disconnection

The war is for your heart. The enemy's goal is disconnection. His tactic is always lies and confusion—lies and manipulation that bring confusion.

And here's the thing that's so confusing about shame:

Shame is the fear of disconnection. Shame is the fear that if you see the real me, you wouldn't love me, so I'm going to hide so you don't see the real me.

But shame is also the cause of disconnection—because you can't connect with a hidden me.

Confusion. It's the enemy.

Shame is a spirit that comes and attaches to us, and we believe those lies that we're not worthy, that we have to hide, that God's unsafe.

"Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:11, NIV)

And shame, because it partners with fear, will often morph into anger. Anger is fear in disguise. I feel angry because I feel powerless and I have to do something. So we end up hurting others or we hurt ourselves. We become destructive, not just invisible.

The Father Always Comes Toward

In the garden, when they hid, did the Father turn away from them or come toward them?

Toward them.

When Cain killed Abel, did God turn away or come toward?

Toward.

And on the cross, when Jesus said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, NIV)—did the Father actually turn away?

No.

We know that because "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is the first line of Psalm 22. It's the Messianic Psalm that says, "They pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment" (Psalm 22:16-18, NIV).

Those watching Jesus on the cross—they knew. They're watching the fulfillment of that Psalm right in front of them, and they would have memorized it because that's what they did back in those days. They didn't have books you could read. They memorized everything.

Psalm 22 starts, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

But it also says, "You would never turn your face from me."

Jesus entered into the delusion of our separation. He felt disconnected from the Father for the first time ever. But the Father loves us even in our mess. He's the only one that can fix us.

We can't fix ourselves and then come to Him.

Thank You, Jesus.

Connection Is Our Power

The world has gone mad, and Christians are either in one ditch being nice and silent, or in the other ditch hurling fruit from the wrong tree—as if the incarnation and the cross never happened.

He paid for it all to break off the lies. And He cares more about their heart than about being right.

The enemy uses disconnection to steal our power. But we don't have to agree with him.

What are you agreeing with?

The battlefield is in your mind, and the territory it's fighting for is your heart. The choice is yours.

Your power comes from connection—connection to God, connection to yourself (your authentic self, not the avatar), and connection to others. This is why the enemy fights so hard to isolate you, to make you hide, to fill you with shame and fear.

But God comes toward you. Always.

Even when you're hiding in shame. Even when you've made a mess. Even when you're angry and blaming everyone else.

He comes toward you.

Breaking the Cycle

We have to stop partnering with the enemy's strategy. We have to stop disconnecting from those who are broken. We have to stop disconnecting from each other over disagreements. We have to stop disconnecting from our authentic selves out of fear and shame.

In the garden, the couple's unity was their power. The enemy knew if he could divide them—from each other, from themselves, from God—he could steal the dominion they were given.

It worked then. It's still working now.

But it doesn't have to.

Jesus restored what was lost. He broke the power of shame. He tore down the dividing wall. He made a way for us to come boldly before the Father without fear.

And He calls us to live in that reality—connected to Him, connected to each other, authentically connected to ourselves.

This is how we take back the dominion. This is how we release God's Kingdom on earth.

Not through force. Not through control. Not through religious answers or correct theology disconnected from relationship.

Through connection. Heart to heart. Spirit to spirit. Love to love.

The enemy's strategy is disconnection.

Our strategy is connection.

Which kingdom are you empowering today?

Blessings,
Susan 😊