By Steven Norris
It is astonishing to me how many of the kids in my suburban Dallas neighborhood growing up had powers of supersonic hearing. We could be playing just about anywhere in a three-or-four-block radius — street hockey, football, NERF guns, whiffle ball — when one of the boys would pause, turn his ear to the wind, focus intently, and say, “Hey, man! Your mom is calling.”
It didn’t matter whose mom it was — Kevin, Joey, Chris, Alan, the other Kevin, mine — we could pick it up on the wind and just knew who it was as if she were only ten feet away. Usually, those calls had to do with dinner time, and we would head home knowing that something good was waiting for us when we got there. Maybe there were other neighborhoods full of kids with the same kind of powers, but it felt like ours was special.
Over time, my hearing has dulled — both physiologically and metaphorically. At times, I struggle to distinguish between voices in a noisy room. I cannot make out what my wife is saying from across the house. Without my consent, other voices seem to get louder and louder — voices that promise a nourishment that never lasts.
For example, as an adult, I often confuse the voices of conviction and shame. The difference can be subtle, though I believe the confusion is not innate. Rather, it is a learned behavior cultivated by repeated exposure. The world around us contains no shortage of voices who want to heap shame upon our heads and use it to manipulate us toward their own selfish ends.
How many times have we heard someone say, “You should be ashamed of yourself!” or “Shame on you!” or the more subtle, “It’s a shame you couldn’t do any better than that”? Each time it rings in our ears, the hearing dulls just a little bit.
The difference between conviction and shame is this: Conviction tells me that I made a mistake; shame tells me that I am a mistake. Conviction tells me that my behavior is not ok, shame tells me that I am not ok. Conviction calls me home; shame tells me that I am not worthy to come home.
A ministerial colleague of mine in North Carolina, Alan Wright, wrote a book on shame entitled, “Shame Off You!” He claims that the Gospel message can be summarized like this: Christ has come to remove our shame and to take it on himself. He has come to free us from the crushing load of shame that the world (and the Enemy) wants to heap upon us and the paralysis that results. He has come to call us home, where dinner is already on the table and a seat has been reserved with our name on it.
Lent is a season of repentance and coming home to God. It is not intended to be a season of shame and beating ourselves up for past mistakes. I pray that you may have ears to hear the voice of Christ calling you home in this holy time.