Ezekiel prophesied to a people in exile. Their repeated betrayal of the covenant had brought about devastating consequences, including their removal from the land. And yet, in Ezekiel 34, we catch a glimpse of something unexpected: God's heart toward His people, even in the midst of the consequences of their unfaithfulness.
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.
“Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.”
- Ezekiel 34:1-10 ESV
What stands out to me is vs 5. “So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts.”
God sees the suffering of his people and the lack of protective healing from his Shepherds as a cause of their turning away and being scattered.
It is imperative for us to get a similar, grand perspective of what is going on in someone’s life before we know what the Lord might be doing and we choose to speak in line with such. Because there is an important distinction between guilt and shame. Although the two are often used interchangeably, they have different effects on how we understand ourselves, how we relate to others, and how we move toward healing. Understanding this difference matters because the way we experience guilt or shame can take us in very different directions. And in the work of soulcare, recognizing which one is at work can help us better understand what a person needs in order to move toward healing.
Guilt: Something I Did Was Wrong
Guilt is generally connected to something we have done. It brings our attention to a particular action, decision, or behavior that may have caused harm or gone against our values.
Guilt might sound like:
I shouldn't have spoken to her that way.
I hurt someone I care about.
I made a mistake, and I need to take responsibility.
I wish I had responded differently.
While guilt can be uncomfortable, it can also serve a meaningful purpose. It invites us to acknowledge our actions, recognize their impact on others, and consider what might need to be repaired.
When guilt is experienced in a healthy way, it doesn't have to threaten our sense of worth. We can acknowledge that we have done something wrong without concluding that we are fundamentally bad or unworthy.
Guilt says, "I did something wrong, and I am able to take responsibility for it." In fact, guilt can move us toward greater empathy, responsibility, and connection with people and God. Rather than becoming consumed with how we feel about ourselves, we are more able to consider the experience of the other person. We can listen, acknowledge our part, and make room for repair.
Coming from a Christian perspective, this might be an appropriate place to talk about the forgiveness we have through the sacrifice of Jesus. When the cause is woundedness, injury, being lost, and scattered or fragmented, talking about guilt and forgiveness would be inappropriate, if not harmful.
Chronic Shame: Something Is Wrong With Me
The difference between guilt and shame is the difference between, “I am a bad person” and “I am a worthwhile person who did a bad thing.”
Shame reaches much deeper than our behavior. Rather than focusing on something we have done, shame begins to shape how we understand who we are.
Instead of thinking, "I made a mistake," the internal message becomes, "I am a mistake."
Instead of, "I hurt someone," the message becomes, "I am hurtful, unlovable, or fundamentally flawed."
In her book, Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame, Patricia DeYoung explores shame as something that develops and is experienced within the context of relationships. She describes shame affect as a disintegration response to interpersonal dysregulation. In other words, when our sense of connection and safety with another person becomes disrupted, shame can emerge as a response to that relational distress. Wounding has happened, and we had no say in the matter.
Think about what happens when we feel misunderstood, rejected, criticized, exposed, or disconnected from someone important to us. These moments can leave us feeling unsettled and vulnerable. We may struggle to make sense of what is happening within ourselves or between us and another person. And when that reach for connection is not met, the internal self can become fragmented, and begin to bridge the relational gap with beliefs of how we are the cause of this disconnection- this missing of the needs we need.
Shame can move in different directions from there. With enough relational safety and responsiveness, we can begin to regain emotional regulation and a more integrated sense of ourselves. However, when shame is reinforced or left unresolved, it can move toward a deeply painful conclusion: that we are fundamentally worthless, defective, or unworthy of connection.
This is one reason chronic shame can be so difficult to recognize. It doesn't always look like someone who feels badly about themselves. Sometimes it looks like defensiveness, anger, blame, resentment, or an inability to acknowledge one's own contribution to a problem.
How Shame and Guilt Shape the Way We Relate to Others
One of the important distinctions DeYoung explores is how shame-proneness and guilt-proneness can influence our relationships.
When someone is caught in chronic shame, their attention can become increasingly centered on themselves. This isn't necessarily because they are self-absorbed or don't care about others. Rather, so much of their internal energy may be devoted to managing the painful experience of feeling exposed, inadequate, or threatened.
For some, this can lead to blaming themselves. For others, it can lead to blaming those around them. Often, both happen.
When something goes wrong, a person experiencing chronic shame may struggle to tolerate the vulnerability of acknowledging their part. Taking responsibility can feel like further confirmation of their deepest fear: that something is fundamentally wrong with them.
Instead, they may become defensive, resentful, or hostile. They may focus on what the other person did wrong, struggle to empathize with another person's experience, or become consumed with the feeling that they have been wronged.
This can create a painful relational cycle. The very strategies someone uses to protect themselves from shame can make it more difficult to experience the connection and understanding they deeply need.
Guilt, on the other hand, can create a different relational posture. When a person can recognize that they have done something wrong without experiencing their entire sense of self as threatened, they are more able to look beyond themselves.
They can consider another person's experience, acknowledge their own responsibility, and move toward repair. They may still feel anger, disappointment, or sadness, but they are more likely to express those emotions directly and constructively rather than through blame or hostility.
The difference isn't that people who experience guilt never become defensive or angry, or that people who experience shame cannot empathize. These are tendencies, not fixed categories. Most of us experience both at different times. But understanding these patterns can help us recognize what may be happening beneath the surface of our reactions, or where what care the person in front of us needs.
The risk is a high one. If we misassign guilt to a deeply shameful person, we reinforce their shame and leave them feeling more afraid to risk, more stuck in their suffering and more responsible to get themselves out by implying repenting.
Why This Matters in the Care of Soul
When we sit with someone in the work of soulcare, it is important to consider not only what a person is struggling with, but also what is happening beneath the struggle.
Two people may come into a room describing a similar situation. Both may have experienced conflict in a relationship. Both may have said something hurtful or responded in a way they regret. Both may feel misunderstood or disconnected.
But the work of healing may look very different depending on whether guilt or chronic shame is driving their experience.
When guilt is present, the work may involve moving towards reconciliation built on the work of Jesus’ sacrifice.
We can help people slow down and consider their actions, recognize the impact they have had on others, and move toward accountability and repair. We can help them hold the truth that they have made a mistake without allowing that mistake to define their identity.
When chronic shame is present, the work often needs to begin somewhere deeper.
“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Mark 6:34, ESV
Jesus understands his sheep need healing first. In his miracles, he moves towards healing their wounds before he talks about their sin if he talks about it at all!
Simply asking someone to take responsibility, acknowledge their behavior, or consider another person's perspective may not reach the heart of what is happening. If their sense of self is already threatened, these invitations may feel like further rejection or exposure.
Instead, we need to begin by creating a relational experience of safety. This reflects the way of Jesus, who instructed His disciples in John 13 to love one another just as He had loved them. Jesus models a kind of love that moves toward others with compassion, humility, presence, and care. In this sense, healing our wounds is not simply about addressing what is broken within us, but also about experiencing the kind of love through which healing can begin. Jesus has chosen a different way to heal our wounds than the way He forgives our sins, though both are part of the unfolding of His kingdom.
This looks like offering a compassionate and steady presence, helping someone recognize what is happening within them, and gently exploring the stories and experiences that have shaped their understanding of themselves. Entering into their pain the way Jesus does: gentle and with much compassion.
We may need to help them recognize the protective strategies they have developed to manage feelings of inadequacy, rejection, or disconnection. What looks like anger may be protecting a deeper sense of vulnerability. What looks like blame may be an attempt to escape the unbearable feeling of being at fault. What looks like emotional withdrawal may be an effort to avoid further exposure.
This doesn't mean excusing harmful behavior or avoiding accountability. Rather, it means recognizing that accountability and healing are difficult to sustain when a person experiences every acknowledgment of wrongdoing as confirmation of their worthlessness.
The goal is not simply to help someone feel better about themselves. It is to help them develop a more integrated and compassionate understanding of who they are, one that can hold both their humanity and their imperfections. Seeing themselves the way their Shepherd sees them.
Moving Toward a More Integrated Sense of Self
There is something important about the fact that shame is so deeply connected to relationship.
If shame can emerge in moments of relational disconnection and dysregulation, then healing often requires more than an internal shift in thinking. It requires experiences of safe, compassionate connection.
We need relationships in which we can be known without being rejected, challenged without being condemned without being reduced to our failures.
This is also where the Christian understanding of soulcare offers a meaningful foundation for healing.
We believe that we are created in the image of God, inherently valuable and worthy of dignity, yet also deeply affected by the brokenness of the world and our own sin. We don't have to deny our failures to affirm our worth, nor do we have to defend ourselves against every acknowledgment of wrongdoing to remain secure in who we are.
The gospel holds these truths together. We are deeply loved by God, and we are also people in need of redemption. Our failures are real, but they are not the final word about who we are.
In the presence of a compassionate God and his people, we can begin to bring the parts of our stories we have hidden into the light. We can acknowledge where we have been hurt and where we have hurt others. We can begin to recognize the ways we have learned to protect ourselves and consider whether those ways of relating are still serving us.
Perhaps this is part of the invitation of soulcare: to create space where we can become more fully known, not only in our pain and brokenness, but also in our God-given worth and capacity for growth.
When we understand the difference between guilt and chronic shame, we become better able to discern what is needed in the healing process. Sometimes we need an invitation to take responsibility and make things right. Most of the time, we need a safe relationship in which we can begin to believe that our failures do not make us fundamentally unworthy of love.
And often, we need both.
The work of Jesus is far greater than just forgiveness from sins. When Jesus entered into his ministry he began to unfold the Kingdom of God. He brought the ability to be reconciled to the Father through forgiveness of sins, and he brought the ability to heal our deepest relational wounds. And as Shepherds of his flock, it’s our responsibility and greatest honor to continue to roll out the kingdom. Let us be wise in what part of the kingdom healing his people need. May we have great wisdom to understand someone’s entire story and the impact the harmful shepherds have had on them and invite them to bring it all into the presence of the Good shepherd who sees them as sheep looking for safe pasture.