While my Christian school classmates were seemingly bounding through life, bolstered by a strong sense of security and self-worth, confident that God had a bright future in store for them, my life's motto through adolescence stood in stark contrast. My maxim as a child : If you always expect the worst, you'll never be disappointed.

Rainbows and unicorns were conspicuously absent from my childhood. My morbid mantra was formed by the prevailing despair, dejection, and despondence that is sadly common in children growing up in dysfunctional environments.

Strange as it may seem, for kids growing up in troubled homes, following a caustic credo like mine can actually be beneficial. It can protect children from further heartbreak.

• ​If you tell yourself that Mom's depression will once again prevent your family from going on vacation, you can then be pleasantly surprised when she's feeling well enough to go.
• If you assume your dad will come home drunk and you'll have to miss the Father-Son Outing at church, it won't hurt as much when he stumbles into the house long after you were supposed to leave.
• If you convince yourself that you will have to watch the softball game at recess because neither team will want you to play it will seem strangely satisfying to hear, "I guess we'll take you."

One way to be sure your dreams won't be dashed is to simply not allow yourself to dream. 

But while expecting the worst can, in actuality, help us as children, it does nothing but hurt us as adults. Continuing to go through life anticipating a never ending series of disappointments will not only prove devastating to our sense of self-worth, it has the potential to destroy our relationships, including our relationship with God.   

A "what next?" mentality leads to cynicism and pessimism. It can make us sarcastic and distrusting. It fosters doubt and defeatism. These kinds of character traits can prove toxic to our relationship with God and others. The end result: a life of despair.

But despair has never been a part of  God's plan for His children. Rather, He offers us the antidote to despair: hope. In the book of Jeremiah the Lord declares, For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (29:11)
 
Hope is more than just wishful thinking (e.g. I hope I'll be happy one day). It is ironclad confidence that God is who He says He is. Our Protector. Our Provider. Our Fortress. The Lifter of our Heads (Ps. 3:3).

Hope looks beyond our preconceived notions and holds firmly to the truth about God's character as presented in His Word:

• When we expect Him to reject, He accepts.
• When we expect Him to condemn, He commends.
• When we expect Him to blame, He blesses.

Hope is also confidence that we are who He says we are. His prized possessions. His beloved children. Heirs to His riches. His chosen ones.
 
God has great affection for us, particularly those of us who have known rejection. He wants to free us from despair because despair prevents us from having true intimacy with Him. He wants to remove the chip from our shoulders and replace it with Jesus' robes of righteousness.

Even when we expect the worst, God offers us His best. When we open ourselves to Him, He is willing and able to change our attitudes so that we can take in His gifts of love,  grace, healing, and peace. That is power of hope.

​Shame is the feeling that we are defective; the pervading sense that we are undeserving of good things in life; that we are unworthy of love. 

Shame can be the result of growing up in families that were highly critical; where love had stipulations. Shame is the byproduct of churches that concentrate on our being “wretches” rather than celebrate our being recipients of God’s amazing grace. Shame can also come from our deceiving ourselves by believing that if we do bad things it is because we are bad.

Shame is the quicksand of the soul. Shame puts our lives in peril. It pulls us farther and farther away from God as it causes us to sink lower and lower into despair. The more we fight it, the more we fail. The more we fail, the deeper we sink.

Our shame, whether it can be attributed to loveless parents, graceless churches, or our relentless selves, can all be traced to the same source: Satan himself. The Bible calls him “the father of lies.” It is his voice we hear that says:

• You don’t deserve to be loved.

• You’re nothing but a wretched sinner.

• God will never forgive you.

Every false message we receive has the devil’s return address on it. He weighs us down with his lies, seeking to immobilize us in our pursuit of a godly life. His mission, stated in John 10:10, is simple: to steal and kill and destroy. He seeks to steal our sense of worth, kill our spirit, and destroy any relationship we have with God. Shame can accomplish all that.

There is but one thing that will save us from being swallowed in the muck of shame. We must grab hold of God’s truth. We must let His love lift us. We must believe with everything in us the messages He whispers in our ears:

• You are my child (John 1:12-13)

•  I love you dearly ( Col. 3:12)

• You are wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-16)

• I have chosen you to be mine (1 Pet. 2:9)

• You are fully forgiven (Col. 2:13-14)

• In my eyes you are holy and blameless (Eph. 1:4-5)

• I have the peace and hope you’re desperate for (Rom. 5:1-2)

Because of His great love for us God sent His Son into the world to free us from sin and shame. When we struggle with self-worth, when we are brought down by the devil’s lies, when we find ourselves sinking in faulty thinking, our only lifeline is Immanuel, God with us; He is there, kneeling at our side, seeking to save us from harmful, shameful thoughts. Once we take hold of Him and cling to His truth, we will be free.

Once we’ve discovered the peace and hope He longs to give us, may we look back and say as David reflected in Psalm 40, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

(Excerpt from When Father is a Bad Word)

Sadly, for many of us life is all about doing. We plot, we plan, we rush from one meeting or activity to the next as we try to cram as many things into each day as possible before falling into bed at night totally exhausted.

Christians are certainly not exempt from this way of life. We just add spiritual activity to our To Do Lists:

• going to church
• serving on church committees
• praying
• reading our Bible
• doing our daily devotions
• helping the needy.

But even spiritual activity can hinder us in our relationship with our Creator. We can become so busy doing things for God that we never actually spend time with God.
 
Imagine being so consumed with doing things for our spouse—cleaning the house, preparing their meals, washing their car, buying them gifts—that we didn't have time to actually be with them. I think you’d agree that’s not a way to build a marriage. Yet for many of us that is precisely what our “relationship” with God looks like.

The Devil deceives us into thinking that our good, Christ-like activity brings us closer to God. Pastor and author John Ortberg once said, “If the Devil can’t make you bad he’ll make you busy.”   

Our Heavenly Father has a different strategy to help us draw closer to Him. He simply says, Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10, NIV). Not get busy. But be still. Stop what you’re doing. Put away the To Do List. Silence your electronic devices. Dispose of all distractions. Just. Be. Still.

I remember being in a church leadership meeting where the pastor had just come back from a spiritual retreat in which he had a sweet time of practicing the presence of God. Still glowing from the experience he asked the leaders, “When was the last time you got alone with God where you weren’t reading the Bible or even praying, but were just spending time with the Heavenly Father?”

The sound of crickets suggested that there wasn’t a first time they had done that. It’s not that they weren’t good people. They were dedicated to God. They were hard workers in the church. But while they were active in doing things for God they were alarmingly passive in terms simply being with God.   

Many people today are frightened by stillness. One reason is we have grown accustomed to being in busy, noisy environments. We are bombarded daily by words and noises from our ipads and ipods, our blue tooths and blue rays, our PCs and MP-3s. Sometimes we even hear sounds emanating from real people. When we have become comfortable surrounding ourselves with constant noise the sound of silence can be scary.

Some of us are so task-oriented that we feel guilty just being still. We see idleness as a waste of valuable time. We tell ourselves we must stay busy; we’ve got to be productive.
 
But here’s the stark reality: When we equate stillness with laziness and wear busyness like a badge of honor we miss out on the rest for our souls that is necessary for our relationship with God to grow deeper.
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Our Heavenly Father longs for us to simply spend time with Him; to bask in His presence; to glory in His embrace; to wallow in His grace. To simply allow Him to love us for who we are—His beloved children.

So if you truly want to grow closer to Him, at the top of your To Do List write the words TIME ALONE WITH GOD. Find a place to meet with Him. Permit Him to lead you beside still waters so you can find rest for your soul.