Our Guest Craig Hill

Sid: My guest by way of telephone is Craig Hill Founder of Family Foundations International and he’s really a teacher’s teacher. And he’s dealing with a subject that if you do not deal with you will not be free enough to receive the glory that is about ready to be poured out on planet earth. See God has saved the best for last. We’re making available 2 tools that Craig has put together. One is called “Bondage Broken, Freedom from Compulsive Habits.” And some of you say “Well, I’m not a drug addict, I’m not an alcoholic, but what is your idolatry? What are you medicating the deep problems with? Are you medicating it with good feelings you have for food, or for watching television? Or from sexual thoughts or from anger, or from gossip or from over talking although you know you shouldn’t be talking so much? Or from lying or from criticizing? See God want you free He doesn’t want you just to medicate anyone, He want you free and the second thing that goes right along with getting free from bondages is identifying shame. And we are making available including the book 3 audio cassettes on the subject of shame. I have Craig Hill on the telephone and Craig let’s start for basics, what is shame?

Craig: You know what we find Sid is that when you mention that word shame most people won’t identify with it they think “Well, I’m not ashamed, I don’t have that problem.” But when we really look at it it’s really rampant in our society. Most people I found mix shame and guilt as concepts but they’re really 2 entirely separate concepts. Guilt is a feeling that really has to do with wrongness of action. It’s a feeling of “I made a mistake; shame on the other hand is wrongness of being.” Shame is the feeling “I am a mistake.”

Sid: Big distinction.

Craig: Well there sure is because I made a mistake I can fix, if I made a mistake and I did wrong well I can repent, I can be forgiven and I don’t have to do wrong in the future. But if the problem is “I am a mistake you can’t repent of yourself, you can’t cast yourself out, you can’t get rid of yourself, you have to live with you for the rest of your life. So if the wrongness that I’m experiencing is me and I can’t get rid of me there is just this overwhelming sense of doom that I just have to live with this for the rest of my life. The problem is just me, I am the problem and what I found is this force of shame it’s really an active force like cancer in a sense it’s an active force it’s never satisfied to just be in one part of the body it wants to consume the whole body. And shame is like that it’s an active force of death that really emanates from Satan and it get imparted often times unwittingly through families. And as we’ve be talking about bondages, addictions, behavior that people don’t like in the earlier days this weeks the root of a whole lot of that is shame. It’s a deep seated feeling on the inside “I’m worthless, I have no value, I’ll never amount to anything.”

Sid: Could this be unknown?

Craig: It’s almost always unknown I think, most people don’t realize that that’s what’s driving them that that’s really some of the fuel. And shame really is like it’s like a HIV virus it’s like an AIDS virus what it does is it enters and it begins to wear down and break down the spiritual and emotional immune system so to speak. And so when people experience a small attack that for an example in the physical realm a person with AIDS doesn’t die of AIDS they die of a cold or a flu or any kind of thing. A person that has shame working on the inside just like a spiritual and emotional HIV virus a small attack becomes overwhelming to them. Something that a healthy emotional immune system would easily throw off is overwhelming to a person when shame is working on the inside. It just stimulates and stirs up a deep seated fear that I have no value. And like we’ve been talking in the last several days when that happens my flesh engages with all kinds of things to try to bring value to myself. Pride is a real simple reaction to that, if “I feel worthless well then I need to do something real important, I need to do something to make myself valuable.”

Sid: Recognized by man as opposed to recognized by God.

Craig: Exactly and that can be it…

Sid: Man pleasing.

Craig: Right that can be a tremendous motive to ministry if I can just do some great thing for God then people will recognize it then they will make me feel valuable rather than being free on the inside being motivated by the Holy Spirit.

Sid: So what we do again we medicate ourselves rather than being whole.

Craig: Exactly, we do something or another to try to make ourselves okay, to try to make ourselves feel valuable. But deep on the inside that intense shame is still working.

Sid: How did you discover this in your own life?

Craig: You know I first began to see it with my children. When I began to see it in my family was that in an attempt as a father to discipline my children I was actually shaming them rather than disciplining them. What I was actually doing rather than conveying what I’ve come to call the anti-gospel instead of the gospel 5to them. What I mean by that they gospel is this “When you do right I love you and you’re valuable; when you do wrong I love you and you’re valuable.” The anti-gospel is when you do right I love you and you’re valuable, but when you do wrong I will grind you to powder, I will make you feel worthless; I will shame you and use that shame as a manipulative weapon to try to get you to obey me and do what I want you to do.”

Sid: And you know we’re victims because we just act out what our parents did to us and somewhere somehow this has got to stop.

Craig: Sure, unfortunately shame is absolutely transgenerational as you just alluded to. And which means whatever degree of shame I’m still allowing in my life that I don’t even realize I’m carrying I will impart to my children and it will pass right on down to the next generation. I’ll impart to them things that my parents imparted to me.” Which again ends up in being fuel for a fire and when that fire burns then my flesh does all kinds of things to try to comfort it. When you asked “How did I first recognize it?” I remember having an experience with my children was young my youngest Jonathan was 4 years old I was pasturing a church at the time. And you know as a pastor there is even more pressure that you want your children to be perfect and you don’t want them to do anything that they shouldn’t do. Jonathan had just started going to a preschool at that time. And apparently he learned some words at that preschool that we had not taught him and he decided to try one of these words out on his Sunday School teacher.

Sid: (Laughing)

Craig: (Laughing) And she’d asked him to do something he didn’t want to do and so he called her a name that was pretty rude and obscene; and after the service had ended and I came out into the foyer the Sunday School Teacher was there and began to share this information with me. She said “Pastor I just thought that you ought to know as a father that we had this little problem in class today and Jonathan said this and called me this name.” And as she shared with me what the name was I felt my face turning about 3 shades of red, and I thought “Oh my goodness she probably thinks that we talk that way at home, she probably thinks that he learned that from me and I was filled with embarrassment. I think you know the scripture that comes through you mind at that moment “The man who cannot rule his own house how can he rule the church of God.” And I thought “Oh my goodness my ministries over I might as well just resign now.” And so I thanked her and I was on my way across the foyer Jonathan the 4 year old was standing there and I was going to let him know what I thought about that. (Laughing) I was going to spank him and yell at him and basically what was in my heart was “How dare you, how could you embarrass me this way, how could you do this and I was going to let him know in no uncertain terms he better never do that again.” And as I was on my way across the foyer the Holy Spirit stopped me and goes “What are you doing?” And I said “I’m disciplining my son as I’m called to as a father.” He said “No you’re not.” He said “You’re about to shame your son, and as a matter of fact you’re about to be the devils agent and not My agent; you’re about to impart to him exactly the opposite of My message.” And the Lord said “As a matter of fact being his father you are the appointed and anointed vessel to bring correction and discipline to him but at the moment unfortunately you’re disqualified.” I said “Lord, what do you mean disqualified?” He said “Lord what do you mean disqualified?” He said “Well son, you have such a large beam in your own eye you can’t see clearly to remove the speck from your son’s eye you need to deal with the shame in your on heart first.” I said “What are you talking about Lord?” And He said “At the moment you primary concern is not for the welfare of your son, your primary concern is for your own reputation, your own welfare and you want to demonstrate the Sunday School Teacher that you’re going to discipline your son not for his benefit but for your benefit.” And the Lord said “The truth of the matter is you’ve got a bunch of shame in your on heart, you feel like a worthless Pastor, you’ve feel like the worthless father, you feel like you have no value because the truth of the matter is you haven’t come to Me and asked Me who you are in My sight; you’re letting the behavior of a 4 year old determine your value as a human being.” And I thought… the Lord said “That’s a pretty heavy burden to put on a 4 year old; that would be a pretty heavy burden to put on an adult, but to put that on a 4 year old that you’re emotional well-being floats up and down with his behavior; and you’re going to treat him according to your own shame, you’re going to take your shame, dump it on him and now are you going to make him feel worthless because he did something wrong.” And the Lord said “The truth of the matter is I love him just as much as I did before he did that and I want you to convey to him the gospel which is yes he needs discipline, yes he needs correction but his value hasn’t changed because he did wrong, your value hasn’t changed because he did wrong.” And the Lord said “Once again your own shame determine how you treat your son and your going to take your shame dump it all over him and now you’re going to deeply wound him make him feel worthless and then his soul is going to be out of peace and his flesh is going to have to engage to do some kind of …

Sid: You know I’m out of peace right now because we’re out of time but I want to find out what happened come on back on tomorrow’s broadcast Mishpochah.