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Some of us have a hard time with the idea of God’s pleasure over us.

We’re used to the voice of shame, and His voice—the voice of hope and delight—doesn’t always make sense to us.

The answer to heaviness of heart is cultivating a relationship with the Holy Spirit and spending time with Him. If we do that one thing, we will find that everything else is taken care of.

In this sacred, simple place of relationship with the Holy Spirit, we learn who God is, who we are, how to walk out our calling, how to forgive, how to do what the Father is doing, how to worship in spirit and truth, how to spread His light, how to find healing for our heart—everything.

We still make mistakes sometimes, but we’re learning and He’s thrilled that we’re learning. As we realize how happy He is just with the learning—that’s a shame breaker.

Shame loses its foothold in our life and the spirit of religion snaps off of us as we realize the Lord is pleased right now, as we’re learning.

God Doesn’t Sound Like Shame

Knowing the importance of our relationship with the Holy Spirit, the enemy does everything he can to convince us we can’t or don’t hear from God.

“You know this is just in your head, right?”

“You’re making this up.”

“That isn’t really what He said.”

“Oh look. You’re a failure at this too.”

The enemy tries to drive a wedge into our relationship with the Spirit of God. One way or another, he tries to shut us down. Shame comes in and says, “I see what you are. You’re a failure, and you can’t expect to be anything else. God won’t accept you until you are different. Until you do more. Until you give more.”

But shame is never the voice of our Father. Any voice that comes with shame attached to it isn’t God’s voice.

Cutting Off Shame’s Voice

To know the pleasure of God over us, we can’t look at our mistakes and see only how we’ve failed. We can’t heap shame on our head and believe we have no worth.

Instead, we need to build a relationship with the Holy Spirit, spending time with Him, listening to Him, thinking about Him, meditating on the things He says, saying no to anything He isn’t saying.

Through this process, we slowly—sometimes very slowly—start to look more and more like Jesus. The darkness fades, and His light comes to the forefront.

As we lean into the Holy Spirit, we find out the truth of the matter. We discover God’s pleasure, and the voice of shame is cut off.