 I don't talk about this very often, but I think it's time I need to. In this video, I'm going to share with you why I almost left Christianity. It's going to be a little bit intense, but I think it might be helpful for you if you're going through something similar. The concept that we're going to be working through today and that I'm going to be sharing with you today is all around shame and the detrimental impacts that shame and guilt can have on your life even as a Christian. And so I want to start at the beginning. When I was younger, raised a Christian, raised in a Christian household, my parents were amazing, reaffirmed to me what the gospel was, that I was loved, that I was secure. Their love for me was unconditional. And those things were made very clear to me, but even in that space, I became kind of obsessed in some ways about getting their attention. I think a lot of that might have been too. I have having seven siblings where, you know, attention was split and I did get attention from my parents, but I also wanted more of it and I wanted to please them. That was something that was kind of, I guess, just kind of innate in a lot of ways. And I think for a lot of kids it's that way. They want to please their parents. They want to get their attention, especially kind of having a more morally oriented personality where for me, what was highest of value was to be seen as good, as responsible, as approved by other people. Definitely people pleasing mentalities, but that was applied to my parents. So I do all the chores. I try to do my homework in such a way where they would, you know, they would pay attention. They'd congratulate me. They'd say nice things about me. And that kind of reaffirmed the cycle, not saying that they shouldn't have done that, but that reaffirmed the cycle that I want to earn their love. And I think that the challenge is, in the midst of that, I was telling myself a story. And this is kind of what I want to hone in here, is each of us are telling ourselves a story and the story that I was telling myself was, I'm really not capable in a lot of ways. I'm not lovable. And I don't deserve that. And so I need to do more and be more in order for people to love me, in order for people to accept me. And if I don't feel like I'm reaching my expectations of myself and people affirm their love for me, then I believe that they're lying. That's just truth. Right? That's just the story that I was telling. If I don't feel like I'm reaching my own expectations of myself and other people are saying, hey, we love you, hey, you're doing a good job, I think they're lying to me. And that was the story that I was telling. And I applied this story to my relationship with God, where even after hearing the Gospel, understanding the Gospel, that Jesus came to this world not to condemn the world, but that the world would be saved through him, that his love, that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, understanding that God's love for his children is unconditional, that when we are in Christ, we are secured in him. That was a present mental reality, right? And I think the challenge is recognizing that there's a difference between mental ascent and an internal reality. I would have had a mental ascent that, yes, God loves me and it's all by my grace that, all by his grace that I am saved. And so I recognize that. But at the same time, there was this deep burden and weight on my shoulders of performance, feeling like I had to be a perfect Christian in order for God to accept me, in order for God to love me and anything apart from that, if I wasn't measuring up to my own expectations, then surely God is lying when he says he is for me, when he says that he will not forsake me, when he says that I am his child and I am approved and he delights over me. Like, how could I believe those things when I'm a loser? When I am so incapable, when I can't do anything right or I'm not working hard enough or I'm not performing well enough. And these were, this was the story that I was telling myself for so long. And you can see why that would have put such a burden on your shoulders. And maybe you experienced the same thing where a lot of my orientation towards Christianity was, okay, I understand mentally a lot of this truth and that we're invited into a rest and that we're invited into this place of rejoicing in God so deeply and in that we glorify Him and the overflow of that is also service to others and service for God and that all comes out of a place of joy and delight. I can recognize that from a mental ascent, but my heart was being conducted and oriented by the shame story that I was telling myself. And I think a lot of us in our lives, whether it was words that were spoken over us or it was just our own internal tension that we experienced. We create this shame story. When we think about shame, we often think about, okay, I did something morally bad and then I feel shame about it and that brings me hopefully to repentance in God, right? It's kind of an indicator. Guilt and shame should be an indicator, okay, something's not right here. I've done something wrong, but then I can find forgiveness in God. And that's kind of its purpose. There's also shame that is disoriented, that is destructive, that kind of convicts us of things that we shouldn't be convicted by or condemns us for things that we shouldn't be condemned by. I think of the verse, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I took that in. I understood that. I was like, okay, hey, look, yeah, all my sins of the past, they've been washed away. But what about my shortcomings of the present? What about those days that I feel like I'm not doing enough, I'm not being enough, I'm not achieving what I want to achieve or I feel like I need to reach. What about then? Well condemnation comes fast and quick on my shoulders all of a sudden and I don't have anything to fight back with because I just feel like this is what I'm called to. I have to be better. I have to be more equipped. And so the shame story was really just weighing me down. When I got to the point where I was fed up, I didn't understand how I could continue to operate in this way and having no kind of confidence or security, just believing that everything I do was just under a magnifying glass and just God was just over my shoulders and making sure that I was good. And ultimately what I came to was recognizing that the shame that I was feeling was not from God, that's the truth. That's what kept me from buying into it was realizing, wait a minute, this is a lie because what the devil is trying to do, he's trying to tell me two lies here and we'll talk about this in another video, he's trying to tell me that number one, I'm enough without God and that I'm not enough with him. That I'm enough without God and that I'm not enough with him. All my attention was on myself. I was on my capabilities and yes, I recognized, hey, I fall short in so many areas and I need God's grace, but at the same time, where do I go with the shame? Well, it's recognizing that God in God, I am secure. I am loved. I am his child that his love for me is unconditional. Through that security, through that foundation and grounding, then I can conduct my whole life out of that joy and that delight and that rest, but that's where it needs to begin. It can't begin out of duty. It has to begin out of delight and that was the tension because it was so little delight in my life at that point, at least in terms of my faith. I felt it was burdensome. I felt that the Christian life and a lot of the content that I was watching kind of, I think reverberated this, was that it was just this kind of treading through the muck and the mire of this world that it is going to be just this challenging experience and nothing you can do about it and you just got to wait till you get to heaven. And now I realize how misguided that was. And it was kind of continuing on this, the shame story where I was like, well, it's just going to be bad. I just feel bad about myself. That's it. But rather, taking my attention off of myself, off of my perception of myself, getting out of this place of self pity, rejecting the shame, these lies from the evil one that are just untrue and honing into God's truth. And that was one of the things and that continues to be one of the things that has been so beneficial is reorienting my heart on God's truth as simple as that sounds. And one of the things that I think is really challenging for me personally is to believe God's promises. And the reason that I have a hard time believing God's promises is that they're too simple. The idea that God says, my love for you is unconditional or that you're accepted in me or that you're part of the royal priesthood, that you're clothed in righteousness, that I'll never leave you nor forsake you, that I'll be present with you even till the end of the age. Like those promises that we are being given, right, they're too simple. I would almost feel more comfortable if I was given a step by step instruction manual on how to make my life work. And that's kind of how I was operating. I was operating out of my own instruction manual, believing that man, you know, or maybe even taking some biblical principles, meaning if I work really hard and I'm a good person and I love people well and I'm self-sacrificial and I try to do all that stuff, then my whole life will work out. And also that, you know, I can be loved and then I'll be worthy of love, but recognizing that that is just so burdensome. And that is the burden that God wants to remove from us. Not that we are called into just, oh, I need to become all of this, but rather I can just be, I can just rest. It's this tension, this tension between being and becoming, right? To be. God calls us to rest in him, to be accepted by his grace, that he leads us to still waters and he says to take his yoke upon us because it is light and he will give us rest. This is the being that he invites us into. But then there's becoming, which he also calls us into as well, to become more like him, to continue to pursue him in everything, to grow in sanctification according to his word, according to his character and this, but you can only become if you were secure in your being, if you're secure in your identity, right? So when we have a secure identity and who we are, when we've rejected the shame stories that the evil one tries to tell us, then we can pursue becoming out of that security. Rather, because sometimes we can have, we can have a disjointed balance here where you can all be, it's all about becoming, it's all about what I need to do. It's all about what I need to become in order to be loved, but rather there's the security in being in Christ and who he says we are. And that is where I find myself now. This journey is not complete. I have a lot of work to do. I think these are things that take a lot of healing and time, but it's important that we come to terms with them. That's where I'm at. Coming to terms with this, this is how I see things, some of the baggage that I've encountered, but realizing that Christ is sufficient in bringing about healing in relationship with him and also in relationship with others, people that you can be vulnerable with finding those communities, those places and realizing ultimately that this transformation that needs to happen, especially within my heart, it's about submitting and realizing I can't just change the way I think and believe or these core beliefs that and shame stories that I've been telling myself for so many years, but through God, through continually praying without ceasing, I believe that God is working on a transformation work within me and it's going to be slow and it's going to take some time and I'm going to need some patience from people around me, but it's happening. And that's what I want for you to have that transformation happen and when you rely on God, when you're honest with him about it, I think that's when the healing really began. So thank you so much for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, subscribe because I'm putting out new videos all the time. This video is a little bit different from what I normally do, but I'd love to incorporate more of this type of content into the daily disciple channel. So if you enjoyed it, please subscribe and let me know in the comments down below how you connect with this story, maybe something that has been challenging for you in your faith walk or how you've navigated shame for yourself. I just want to give a huge shout out to everyone on Patreon guys just genuinely and honestly, it has been such a blessing to have you guys on there supporting me. This is my passion. This is my heart and having you guys on there as really just providing so that I can continue to make this content is such a blessing. I really don't want to take pro-world deals or sponsorships and incorporate it into like a video like this. It just makes no sense and it's just would be awful, but you guys make it so I don't have to do that. So thank you so much. If you want to support me, hit the link in my description and sign up today. I will see you guys next time. God bless.