For most of my life, I believed two things at the same time.
I believed in grace.
And I believed in shame.
I preached grace for more than 20 years in ministry. I told people that God loved them, that forgiveness was real, that Jesus met us in our brokenness. And I believed every word of it.
But when it came to my own life—my addiction, my struggle, my behavior—I lived by a different belief.
I believed shame was the answer to change.
I thought if I felt bad enough… I would finally do better.
If I hated what I had done enough… I would stop doing it.
If I carried enough guilt… I could force myself into becoming someone different.
But that’s not what happened.
My addiction continued. My behavior didn’t change in any lasting way. And eventually, everything came crashing down. My ministry, my reputation, my sense of control—all of it collapsed. I ended up in prison.
And it was there, in the middle of losing everything, that I began to encounter something I had talked about for years but never truly experienced.
Grace.
In recovery, I came across a verse I had read many times before, but this time it landed differently:
Romans 2:4 — “God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.”
Not His anger.
Not His disappointment.
Not shame.
His kindness.
That verse challenged everything I thought I knew about change.
Because shame had never actually healed anything in me. It may have changed my behavior for a short time, but it never touched the deeper places—the pain, the fear, the unmet needs that were driving my addiction in the first place.
Shame can control behavior for a moment.
But it cannot transform a heart.
I saw this play out clearly one day sitting in a coffee shop with a client.
He had just relapsed, and I knew it before he even got out of his car. His head was down. He wouldn’t make eye contact. His whole posture said what his words hadn’t yet.
I had walked that same walk.
We sat down, and I read him Romans 2:4. Then I asked him a simple question:
“What do you think Jesus would say to you right now if He were sitting here with us?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“He’d be disappointed,” he said. “He’d say, ‘Why can’t you get your act together after all I’ve done for you?’”
That’s the voice so many of us hear. The voice of shame dressed up like God.
So I read the verse again. Slowly.
Then I told him, “I don’t think Jesus would sit across the table from you right now.”
“I think He would pull up a chair right next to you.”
“And as you tried to move away… He would move closer.”
“Until you were backed up against the wall… and He was sitting right there beside you.”
“And then He would put His arm around you.”
“Maybe even pull your head onto His shoulder.”
And then I told him what I believe Jesus would actually say:
“I’m sorry you believe you need this behavior to escape your pain. Will you walk with Me and let Me show you a better way? I love you.”
That is the kindness of God.
That is what leads to repentance.
This doesn’t mean that our behavior doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean we ignore sin or pretend it’s not destructive. Scripture is clear that grace is not permission to continue in patterns that harm us and others.
But it does mean this:
It is not when I hate myself enough that I change.
It is when I begin to understand how deeply I am loved—even in the middle of my failure.
Because love does something shame never could.
Love creates desire.
Love creates safety.
Love creates strength.
And in recovery, that matters.
Because so much of addiction is not about pleasure—it’s about escape. It’s about trying to find relief from pain, fear, loneliness, or shame itself. And if shame is the very thing driving the behavior, it cannot also be the thing that heals it.
Jesus doesn’t shame us out of our struggles.
He walks us out of them.
So the question becomes:
What voice are you listening to in your recovery?
Is it the voice that tells you you’re a failure? That you should be further along by now? That you’re disappointing God?
Or is it the voice of kindness—the one that moves toward you, sits beside you, and invites you to walk a different path?
Because if shame worked… it would have worked by now.
But the kindness of God—that’s what leads us somewhere new.
So what voice are you listening to today? And what might change if you began to believe that Jesus is not sitting across from you in disappointment, but next to you in love?