I started reading Brene’ Brown’s Daring Greatly. Richard highly recommended it to me. It most certainly resonates. It has me wondering where shame and evil voices, hence, evil in general, comes from. When I asked Richard this a few months ago, he simply said, “Evil came about because it could.” Hmm. I guess it’s like asking where God came from. Where do those gremlin (the term Brown uses, borrowed from Steven Spielberg’s 1984 movie) voices come from? We all have them. Mine constantly spew out, “You’re not good enough;” also, “They might not like you;” “You could lose your job because you’re not doing a good enough job;” “You’re a horrible writer. No one would want to read what you’ve written;” “You’re ugly.” “You’re worthless.”

Where does that ever present voice, especially the “You’re not good enough” voice come from? I think sometimes it comes from other people – things they’ve spoken. I think sometimes it comes from social media (which is why I don’t have social media). I think it comes from ourselves – especially when we compare ourselves to other people. Why do this? We’re not them. You and I are completely separate humans.

I find that the Gospels and the Bible in general sheds some light on this. The serpent in the garden asked Eve, “Did God really say…?” (Genesis 3:1). She responded by reciting to the serpent what God said. She hadn’t forgotten what He said. The serpent told her something completely contrary to what God had told her – the serpent: “No! You will not die.” God told Adam in Chapter 2 that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would die. Adam or God must have relayed this message to Eve. She knew it.

Things seemed to be going well until the snake came along. The snake presents himself to each of us. And we’ve all yielded to him. We’ve all questioned what God said. In chapter 1 God unequivocally blesses mankind. He admonishes them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. To rule over the creatures of the earth.

God is the Creator. He speaks life and things into existence. He makes wonders. Look at the array of animals on the planet today: starfish, great whites, ostriches, dogs, inchworms. Look at the ocean and the Grand Canyon and the stars. Look at the human body. God is life. He called us into it. The snake came (and still comes) slithering along questioning all of this. He opposes it. And he invites us to do the same. And we do, when we listen to him. Adam and Eve were with the animals, in the Garden, with God – naked. Exposed, coverless, completely seen. And they felt no shame (Genesis 2:25). Brown defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” Yep, I’d say that’s about right. Shame came in when Adam and Eve stopped believing God and started believing the snake.

The Bible goes on to tell the story of what happens when shame takes hold and runs amok in the world. It is the opposite of what we were made for and its repercussions make us do terrible things to ourselves and others. I’ve heard it said: If you want to know what someone believes, look at what he or she does.” When we believe the snake and then start acting, we bring hell in the earth. Just look around. Robbery, greed, child abuse, elder neglect, suicide, sex trafficking, murder, extortion, bullying, divorce, alcoholism, etc. But the good news is that God was not and is not surprised. For in the story comes a Savior – untouched by the slithering serpent. Jesus. God made flesh. Amazing. He chose to enter into our mayhem, knowing well the risks and possible rejection. He came in naked and left nearly naked – on a cross. He spoke of God’s unfailing love and desire to be with His creation – his humans. He met prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, the lowest of the lowest, and even the stately caught in their posh chains of self-righteousness and cold-heartedness (which group do you identify with?). By teaching, loving, healing, allowing sin and the serpent to run Him dry, He quenched its power over us. So that we could be set free. Free from shame and the ever-nagging voices of the deceitful gremlins and serpents.

The story goes that the work is ongoing (again, just take a look around). Jesus will come again. Next time around He will not die, though. He will come to set all things right. To finally crush the gremlins and serpents for good. I don’t fully understand all this just yet, but I have allowed this wonderful hope to take root in my heart, ever since I was a little kid and heard about it. Sure, I’ve questioned it as any half-thinking human would. But the more I poke and prod and even try to distance myself and seek this God out objectively, I find myself here again. Believing. Yearning for the just, shame-removing, restoring, truth-holding God to reveal Himself to all mankind and to rescue us once and for all. The concepts of good and evil are within each of us – we cannot deny that they exist. From the classic Disney stories to James Bond to our daily lives and the local news, good versus evil is a theme of the human condition. I believe we’re called to goodness. But evil has taken hold and we need a power stronger than it and ourselves to release us from its grasp.

Until then, I immerse myself in what He says. I try my darndest to let His words take hold rather than the words of the gremlins. “I am enough.” “I am loved.” “I am worth fighting for.” “I am worth having relationship with.” “I am beautifully made.” “I am sanctified.” “I am worthy.” “I am welcome at the table.” “I am forgiven.” “I am loved so much that my maker died so I could live.” What kind of wretched gremlin would dare try to make me believe otherwise? “No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). ~