Unnessary Embarresment

Defining Embarrassment

Embarrassment: Embarrassment is considered one of the self-conscious emotions, quite at ease in the company of guilt, shame, and pride. Given that embarrassment happens in relation to other people, it is a public emotion that makes you feel exposed, awkward, and filled with regret

Types of embarrassment

When privacy is violated

When you don’t know something

When you’re being criticized

When you do something wrong or awkward

When you image is not what you want

When struggling to fit in

The experience of embarrassment can be double sided.

Some experiences can propel us to do better in life.

There is a dark side to embarrassment which can lead us to take on unhealthy behaviors and make poor choices

Especially when our embarrassment comes form a sense of personal deficiency...’not good enough’

We hide, isolate, cover, veneer

We feel BROKEN

Embarrassment out of a belief of personal deficiency can be experienced as reproach.

Reproach: disgrace or discredited, or a source of embarrassment

Our believed/perceived personal deficiency is a source of reproach for us.

Ex. Hanna and Peninnah

1 Samuel 1:6 NASB95

6 Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb.

Ex. Nehemiah

Nehemiah 2:17 NASB95

17 Then I said to them, “You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate and its gates burned by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem so that we will no longer be a reproach.”

Broken in God’s hands

Summarize Gospel of Today (Luke 1:1-25)

Luke 1:6–7 NKJV

6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.

Perception of being broken...’BUT’

The reproach / embarrassment they experienced was primarily in relation to others. Others had kids but we don’t.

Children were seen a blessing from God…God’s approval

Flip the perspective.

Is embarrassment based on personal deficiency founded in the eyes of God?

Embarrassment of this type is from people not before God.

Was Elizabeth deficient in God’s eyes?

Embarrassment would be founded if it hindered His Will.

God wasn’t hindered by her barrenness. He is never hindered by any of our perceived deficiencies, which can be the source of our embarrassment.

God desires to work with us and through us. Through our perceived faults/shortcoming.

God sought after their faithfulness all these years in order to get to this point. What others looked at as negatively, God saw as opportunity to reveal Himself in a glorious way.

Luke 1:25 NKJV

25 “Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

Similarly for us. What we perceive as a deficit / shortcoming/ source of embarrassment from our perceived deficiency is a pathway for God’s glory to be revealed in us.

It does require us to be faithful along the way. to not hide and pick up unhealthy behaviors and make foolish choices. Be patient and faithful and God will lead you to something greater.

“Virtues are formed by prayer. Prayer preserves temperance, suppresses anger, restrains pride and envy, draws down the Holy Spirit into the soul and raises man to heaven.” ~St. Ephraim the Syrian