Despair, Anxiety, Shame

The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. Deuteronomy 28:20

Have you ever held a secret that you were desperate to keep hidden? Maybe it was something in your past, or maybe it was something you were doing – something that you’d be horrified if everyone knew. You believed in one thing, but you lived in a manner completely contrary to that thing. You were conscience-stricken, worrying constantly about discovery. Every interaction was tainted by the fear that others might know. When someone looked at you sideways, it sent you into a panic. Tormented by shame and fear, you laid awake at night, desperate for a moment of peace, but peace was a stranger you’d abandoned long ago.

I speak, of course, from experience. In my addiction, my life was chaos. I longed for peace, but I could never know peace until I gave up my pills, which simply I couldn’t do – That’s the nature of addiction. Then, when that addiction was dragged into the light, my life got even worse. Within the span of a few weeks, I lost my job, went to treatment, watched my family fall apart, and was visited by the Drug Enforcement Agency. In the ensuing calamity though, there was a part of me that was relieved because I knew I no longer had maintain my secret. Sigh. It’s finally over.

Sin wrecks everything. That’s the message of today’s passage. In the passage, Moses told his people that if they abandoned God and followed themselves, they’d be cursed, experiencing chaos and frustration in everything they did. God gave them the freedom to do what they wanted, but he also made the world in such a way that disobedience led to misery.

Many of us have found ourselves here, perhaps without even knowing why. Our lives are chaotic and frustrating while we’re anxious, shame-filled, and guilt-ridden. We thought we were manifesting self-actualization by following our own way, but we were simply self-destructing, calling down misery upon ourselves. God created us to find ultimate peace, purpose, and joy only in him and it is futility to try and find it apart from him. Following God doesn’t mean we won’t experience any trials in life, but when we stop self-destructing, we can finally find peace and joy despite life’s trials. There is no peace to be found in following ourselves. Sin wrecks everything. It is only in abandoning our disobedience to follow God that we may experience the life, joy, and peace for which we were created.