You Can't Heal What You Hide

We've all had that moment — the panic of being exposed, the instinct to run, to hide, to pretend it didn't happen. But what if that Christ-exposed moment was never meant to destroy you — but to heal you? In this episode of Midweek Motivation, Jess unpacks the real meaning of shame, why it's more than just a feeling, and how the Holy Spirit walks us through it toward freedom, restoration, and grace.

Discover:

• Why shame is a human experience of exposure — not just an emotion
• The instinct to hide and how it traces all the way back to Adam and Eve
• What Jesus taught about the Holy Spirit's role in conviction, truth, and identity (John 14–16)
• Three common responses to shame — and why only one leads to real freedom
• Practical steps to take when shame shows up in your life

Reflection: If you've ever carried the weight of something you thought defined you, this episode is your reminder that brokenness is not your identity. God's first instinct when you feel exposed isn't to condemn — it's to pursue. The Holy Spirit doesn't leave you stuck in shame. He reminds you who you are in Christ, reveals truth, and guides you forward. Freedom is waiting on the other side of what you've been hiding.

Key Takeaways:

• Shame is the human experience of exposure when something broken comes to light — it's deeper than a feeling
• Humanity's first instinct is to hide; God's first instinct is to pursue
• The Holy Spirit reminds us of what Jesus said, convicts with truth, and guides us into that truth
• You cannot heal what you hide — healing requires bringing brokenness into the light
• Shame can be a doorway, but it was never meant to be a home — don't carry it with you
• God exposes and convicts to heal, not to shame

Question for you to think about: What would change in your life if you stopped hiding and let those moments of conviction lead you back to God?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to this week's Midweek Motivation. My name is Jess, and to kick us off, I just want to paint a picture for you. Imagine you're sitting at your desk at work, maybe you're at home, but you're replying to or responding to an email, and maybe it's an email string with a bunch of people, but you have thoughts that you want to share specifically with one person. And so I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. You get your email all crafted, it's clear and concise, and you feel good about it, and you hit send. And then the dread sinks in. The dread, oh no, I just sent that to everyone. The realization sinks in, and then all of a sudden you feel exposed. All of your thoughts, all of your ideas, your feelings, whatever it is contained in that email out to everybody, right? What do you do? You respond maybe out of panic. Maybe you're like, oh, I can't delete it. There's no possible way. Can I recall it? If I recall it, what if somebody's already seen it? Then it's too late. They've already seen it. I can recall for some people, maybe, but it's already been seen. I'm just gonna quit my job. I'm gonna change my email, my phone number, I'm gonna move, relocate. The jig is up.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast, where we bring practical help for your faith and life. Here's today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

That instinct to run and to hide when you feel exposed. Oh my gosh, it's as old as humanity. We see that in Genesis 3 when we see Adam and Eve in paradise. They're in paradise. They've got everything that they can possibly want or need. And then the fruit. They took up take up by the fruit, and in the account of Adam and Eve, it says that their eyes were opened. Something was revealed to them, right? Their a truth was revealed to them and they felt exposed. And so they covered up. And then God walks through the garden and he looks for them, and they run and they hide. The struggle is real, the instinct is real. It's there. And um, I think uh the question is what causes us to run and hide, right? That's the question, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. What causes us to run and hide? And I think what causes us to run and hide is the feeling and the human experience of shame. And the struggle is real. Um, and one of the things that I I want to talk about and really unpack is that I think in today's world, we can really reduce shame as a feeling. And I think when we dive into scripture, when we dive into even the Adam and Eve account, um, when we dive into um just the the real meaning behind shame in the Bible, we recognize that it's not just a feeling, but it's actually a human experience um when that we that we go through when we've been exposed, when uh when truth or when light of something of bro uh something broken is exposed. Okay. Going back, okay, I think that we realize that shame is not actually just a feeling, but it's actually the human experience of exposure when something is broken, right? Um, and just to go back and to highlight, I think that there are two things really important to highlight from the account of Adam and Eve, and that is that the number one instinct of humanity when something broken has been exposed is to run and hide. But what we see in the account of the Garden of Eden is that the number one instinct of God is to pursue. And Pastor Stephen Rady um talked about that on Sunday. And if you missed that message, you really want to check it out. It was such a great message. And um, anyway, so so definitely do that. But um, back to this idea, we're gonna talk about the truth about shame. So we might think, we might be tempted to think that God uses shame to help us grow, to move us, um, to restore, to reconcile. But really, God uses truth. That conviction or that exposure of brokenness is what he uses to move us and to grow us and to restore us and to reconcile us with him. Shame is a part of the human experience. It is what happens when truth exposes brokenness. But there's this beautiful thing that we know about God, and that is that he offers us his grace. And what can we uh expect in within this idea? What can we expect from God's grace? Um, we can uh know that God doesn't intend for us to navigate the experience of shame alone, the human experience of shame alone. So um, fast forward into the New Testament, um, and Jesus is sitting at the table with his 12 disciples. Now, he's been walking with them for three years. He called them into ministry, he called them to follow him, he's been teaching and instructing them, he's been um healing people, he's been uh uh they've experienced miracles with him. Um, he's he's done just all of this incredible stuff, and they are sitting at this table, sure within, uh sure without any reasonable doubt that he is the Messiah, that he's the savior. But he's trying to prepare them for a change that they just can't wrap their brain around. He's trying to prepare them for the fact that he's gonna um, he's, he's going to um, he's headed for the cross, you know? And so he uh wants to prepare them for this. And they don't quite understand what it is that he's saying, but um in John 14 and 16, 14 through 16, Jesus talks about this gift that he has for them and the fact that he has to leave so that he can send them this helper or this advocate called the Holy Spirit. And there are some things that Jesus teaches us about who the Holy Spirit is and what he does in these chapters. Um, so first in John 14, 26, um, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is gonna remind them or remind us um of all Jesus said. He's gonna teach us and he's gonna remind us of what Jesus said. Why is this a big deal? The reason why this is a big deal and why it's so important for us to understand and know what Jesus said is because shame identifies us in our sin. Shame really just attaches us and tells us that that thing, that brokenness is who we are. But the Holy Spirit clarifies that and reminds us of what Jesus says, and Jesus tells us actually that thing that that um that you're wrestling through, that brokenness, that is not who you are. That brokenness is not who you are. And so it's really important for us to ground ourselves in understanding and knowing what it is that Jesus taught and what he said, so that we can stand firm on that truth in our identity in Christ. Um, John 16, 8 says that the Holy Spirit convicts the world. And what does that word mean? Convicts. John, uh, what John is or is saying right there, what Jesus is saying when he's teaching the disciples is that the Holy Spirit convicts the world. It reveals truth to the world, it reveals the truth of that brokenness to the world. And in John 16, 13, John uh Jesus says that the Holy Spirit guides into the truth. So the Holy Spirit um it confirms in us what Jesus has taught us and it confirms our identity in Christ, um, it also convicts, it reveals the truth to us, and it guides us into truth, which is a beautiful thing because if, you know, if we didn't have the Holy Spirit walking us through that human experience of shame that sometimes we have to go through, then it'd be really easy to get lost in it, right? So the question is, what do we do with this knowledge? What do we do with the understanding of shame and how it can be a part of um our experience? Well, response number one is maybe we could hide. We could be like we, you know, like Adam and Eve did. We can um hide, we can justify, we can avoid, we can deflect, maybe we could point f point fingers and blame. I think that that's something that we're all familiar with, but what's the end result of that? The end result of that is getting stuck, getting stuck in that brokenness or whatever that situation is. The truth is that you cannot heal what you hide. And so to bring whatever that brokenness is, whatever that that issue is into the light to be exposed so that God can reveal truth to you in that, um, it it brings healing in that situation. Um, response number two. What's response number two? We can we can bring that into the light. We can acknowledge the situation as God reveals it to us. We can surrender um to God in that situation and to what it is that he's trying to teach us and and what it is that he's trying to um to remove from from us what doesn't belong, right? And we can receive his grace, which is huge, it's beautiful and um abundant. Um, and the result of that really is its restoration with God, it's growth, it's um deepening of faith, it's it's um spiritual maturity, and it's freedom. God exposes um or convicts us to heal, not to shame. And so to grab a hold of that understanding that God's whole purpose and his whole intention is healing, um, is it it should encourage us. It should um catapult us into um into what God has for us in that situation. There is a third response though, and I think that it's actually a pretty common response. And it is to um to bring a situation into light, it is to repent. Um, but also I think in that situation, in this third response, sometimes we we repent and we bring that situation into light and we go through that process of surrender and and we decide or um end up carrying that shame with us. So um maybe we're acknowledging um and confessing that situation. Maybe we believe in God's forgiveness, but we continue to carry that shame identity. Um, and the end result of that, I think it can be stunted growth, right? We we accept the forgiveness of God, but we reject his verdict of innocent, of clean, of my child, the child of God. And I and it that really can result in maybe distraction, maybe insecurity or the inability to grab hold of the things that God has for us because of the insecurity or the distraction, because we carry the identity of that brokenness when we are told that we no longer are identified in that, but we are a child of God. We um we are, you know, a child of God in Christ. So I think um at the end of um at the end of the line, what we can really learn from this is that shame, it can be a doorway for us, but it was never intended to be a home. It was never intended to be somewhere that we live. And we were never meant to pack up shame and carry it around with us in our baggages. Um, we were meant to um work through the human experience with the help of the Holy Spirit in order to find um, in order to find reconciliation and restoration and resent redemption through God. But we were never meant to carry it with us. So, what happens when shame shows up? Because inevitably it will, I think. Um, what happens? What can we do? Number one, name what happened, be truthful about it, don't hide from it, but allow God to expose the truth in what it is, right? Um, number two, make sure that you remember again, allow that holy the Holy Spirit to remind you of who you are in Christ and separate what it is that God is trying to maybe reveal to you, heal or remove from your life. Um, but separate that from the fact that you are a child of God. You are not that thing. Um, remember, you aren't that thing. I think that that's incredible to you to really remember. Um, number three, bring it to God quickly. Remember not to hide it, don't try and run away, don't try to deny or deflect. Um, but bring it to God honestly and and um, you know, truthfully. Um number four, receive God's grace, God's abundant grace, I think, um, is it's a precious gift that we have the understanding that Jesus paid the penalty of sin for us on the cross. And um and so we recognize that um in our sin we don't we don't actually get what we maybe have earned or deserved, but um we get an abundance of above and beyond what we could possibly deserve, like even better, right? We don't get what we deserve, we get what we don't deserve and we get it in abundance. There you go. Um, and then move forward. Remember to leave behind the lies um of shame, remember um to only take with you the wisdom and the truth that God has given you in that situation that help you to grow in spiritual maturity and help you to grow in and more like Jesus, right? So the question that I want to leave us with is what would change if you stopped hiding? What would change if you stopped hiding and instead let those conviction moments lead you back to God? All right, guys, I hope that you're encouraged and uh blessed by this. And I I hope that it revealed something um new to you. I know that this has been a journey for me, and uh, and I'm so grateful for the Holy Spirit and just for um for the truth of the Bible. And uh, we'll see you next week. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Midweek Motivation. To make sure you don't miss any content in the future, please subscribe, share, and if you enjoyed this, give us a like and consider popping by a Westside service some weekend. You can find out more at Westside Community Church.com.