Negative Ego
When it happened, I was caught completely off guard. I couldn’t believe that the old temptations, put aside long ago, were back, demanding attention. At first I was confused. Since I didn’t see it coming, I was unprepared. I felt like someone had just turned back the clock about three years. I cried out to the Lord, “Why am I faced with this all over again?” As I prayed and pondered, slowly the scope of battle took on a new dimension. I realized that I was struggling with negative ego.
You remember eighth grade math. That’s when we learned that every positive number has an equal and opposite negative number. We drew number lines and marked the spots. +1, -1, +2, -2. What we didn’t realize is that this dual characteristic is also true in the development of the ego.
Christians have a fairly well developed concept of ego when it comes to the positive side of the number line. They recognize that ego is the glorification of the achievement of the self. My friend Phil Hodges makes it very clear when he defines ego as our performance plus the opinion of others. Ego, says Phil, is Edging God Out. This side of ego is all about how great I am. When I begin to think, act or dream that my self-worth is based on how well I perform and how much other people think of me, then I am on the pathway to pushing God aside.
Of course, the Bible already made all of this clear. The Hebrew word halal is the word for “praise”. It is the basis of our word “hallelujah” that literally means, “praise for the God named Yah (short for Yahweh)”. What is most interesting is that this same word, halal, is used to describe the sin of pride. Pride is misplaced praise. Praise belongs to God, not me. When I accept praise that should be His, pride takes over.
Christians have a pretty good handle on this sort of sin. Of course, that doesn’t mean we aren’t subject to its wiles. But it does mean that we are attuned to the signs. This is the positive side of the ego number line. This is ego adding up big scores to bolster its claims. We know how to counter this kind of temptation. We recognize the need for humility. We are wary of boasting. We see the red flags.
But there is another side, the negative numbers of ego. Unfortunately, we are far less aware of this dark side and as a result, we are much more likely to get tripped up. The opposite side of the ego number line is shame.
What is shame? It is misplaced guilt. Guilt, just like praise, is important when it follows the Biblical pattern. Guilt is supposed to bring me to repentance. Guilt is my status before the holiness of God. Guilt lets me see my sin and commit to change my ways through His strength. I acknowledge my behavioral unworthiness and beg His mercy. And God gives mercy. God deals with guilt by removing it from me through the substitution of His Son. When God is done with my guilt, it is gone.
But shame sticks around. Shame takes my guilt and converts it into an ego issue. Suddenly I am not confronted with some sinful behavior that did. Shame tells me that it isn’t about my actions. It’s about my essential unworthiness. Shame says that not only did I do something wrong, there is also something wrong with me. This is not God’s view. God says that I have done many wrong things (sins) but that I am essentially so valuable that He is willing to die for me. God does not redeem worthlessness. Shame says that there is nothing valuable about me and that God’s solution is a lie. If you have every felt as though your past behavior can’t ever be corrected, that your past will forever haunt you, maim you and keep you under, then you know what shame is like.
What is important is to understand that shame is an ego issue. It is ego in reverse. Shame is my bad performance plus the condemning opinions of others. It is on the negative side of the ego number line but just as powerful and disruptive as pride. It blocks my relationship with God and denies that what He says is true.
Unlike pride, shame doesn’t get much attention in Christian circles. Therefore, it is even more lethal. You and I have heard plenty of sermons about the horrors of pride. We have been though countless Sunday school lessons about identifying pride and dealing with it. We have had a dozen workshops on the necessity of humility. But how many of us have ever had great instruction about shame? My guess is “not many”. Why? Because we all want to avoid the subject.
No one likes to talk about the shameful behavior. But that is precisely why we need to. The power of shame resides in the secret. Shame in the open can be exposed to the light of God’s word. Shame in the closet keeps a death grip on us. As dangerous and frightening as it is, until the Christian community addresses Shame, we will be unprotected from its attack.
When I live according to my performance measured by the opinion of others, I am in the ego world. We can easily recognize that pride is an ego issue. But the same definition shows us that shame is also in the ego world. The only difference is that shame feeds on my bad performance. As soon as I see that shame is also a function of my ego, the door is open for me to deal with it. God has something to say about my shame because God has something to say about my essential worth and my sinful past. It is only my own ego that allows shame to perpetuate my guilt. It’s not God’s point of view. When I do not understand what God thinks about guilt, I allow shame to use my guilt to push me into the dark. If I am going to overcome the negative ego of shame, I must trust what God says, not what I see and feel.
The solution to positive number line ego behavior (pride) is repentance. “God, forgive me for taking glory on myself. You are the only One who deserves glory. My life is Your gift to me. I thank You for what I have and I am content with what You give.” Not so amazingly, the solution to negative number line ego behavior (shame) is also repentance. Can I really ask for forgiveness about my shame? Yes, I can because shame denies what God did.
“Father, forgive me for doubting how much You love me and value me, regardless of my past. Forgive me for not accepting Your full pardon of my past by allowing it to shape my behavior. Forgive me for letting my ego overcome Your grace. You have taken my guilt from me. Help me today to live on the basis of Christ alone, to die to my self by refusing to let shame tell me that You don’t value me. Thank you for loving me so much You were willing to die to bring me into fellowship with You. Let me, today, live only according to Your view of who I am. Amen.”
