Good morning…
As vulnerable babies, we are born in relationship, born into the experience of Genesis 2:25: In those days the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (VOICE).
Then our innate self centeredness elbows others out of the way. Our “Me. Mine. I.” begin to run our show. We devour what is not generously given to us, then, riddled with guilt, we hide away. The awareness of Genesis 3:7 wakes up in us: At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves (NLT).
Day after day, year after year, God stays with us in life’s garden. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:8-13, NIV).
Guilty shame covers our natural nakedness. Afraid of being seen, “found out,” exposed as imperfect, we hide behind a fake facade. Deceived by God’s enemy, we get lost in our layers of self protection. We depersonalize people. We disconnect from God’s guidance. We blatantly blame one another, shifting the spotlight from ourselves. Heck, we even blame God, “the people you put here with me.”
Our lifetime, whether it is twenty, forty, or eighty years, is about noticing our True Self gradually shedding false coverings, coming out of hurtful hiding, ready to respond to our Creator’s whisper, “Where are you?”
After an honest, intimate conversation, experiencing the painful consequences of separating themselves from God’s life-giving purposes, Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them (Genesis 3, 20-21, NIV).
We are each cut from the same human cloth. In honest, intimate conversation we experience the natural consequences of selfishly separating ourselves from God’s life-giving purposes. Our True Self is given a unique name, and we are each empowered to nurture all living creatures bearing God’s breath. The Lord God makes for us soft garments of skin. We no longer need to clothe ourselves with false ways of being, comparing, competing, controlling, criticizing. Fully loved forever by the God who knows our name, might we walk into this new year naked and unashamed again?
And I will bring (them) through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined and will test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will hear and answer them. I will say, It is My people; and they will say, The Lord is my God (Zechariah 13:9, AMPC).
In the protective ever-presence of our living LORD, our uniqueness blossoms quietly from within our own skin. Our lifetime, whether twenty, forty, or eighty years, is about noticing our True Self gradually shedding false coverings, coming out of hurtful hiding, ready to respond to our Creator’s whisper, “Where are you?”
…Sue…
