When Shame Gets Realনমুনা

In the Beginning

Every story has a beginning and God’s story is no different. Just open up your Bible and within the first few chapters you will learn about the origin of man, his purpose, and his tragic downfall.

The story goes something like this…

In the beginning, God created an amazing world we now know as Planet Earth. Adam and Eve were the first two people he made, and so he gave them this beautiful garden full of potential and teaming with life.

All of this was theirs for the taking, but with one little caveat… don’t eat the fruit of one specific tree.

Of course, we all know what happened.

They were tricked into eating the forbidden fruit by a cunning and clever serpent, which resulted in complete disaster—something the church world often refers to as the fall of mankind.

It’s a beautiful story and yet a tragic one.

It's a promise of limitless potential that results in the worst ending ever!

We closely associate this chapter of human history with something we call “sin” or original sin. It is the story of man’s disobedience to God, which results in a world, once full of life, now a place where people hurt and kill each other for gain and power.

But when you read this unfortunate tale, not only do you see the extreme cost of disobedience, but you also see the grand entrance of our old “friend” shame.

In the Bible, we read that after they ate of the tree “their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.”

Why did they feel the need to clothe themselves?

What gave them the urgency to hide and get dressed?

We aren’t given that answer, but it is clear that when they saw each other naked for the first time, completely bare—flaws and all—they didn’t like what they saw. Maybe they didn’t like what they saw of their partner.

But more likely, they didn’t like what they saw about themselves.

And so they bought into their new friend’s lies and felt immense shame and the need to cover up.

The ironic thing is, when God confronted Adam and Eve, it seems that his primary concern was with their new-found need to hide and not what they had just done. I say that because his first question was...

Why are you hiding?

Followed by his second question…

Who told you that you’re naked?

Of course, he knew the answer to both those questions before He asked, but it’s evident that his concern had nothing to do with their poor, but eco-friendly, fashion choices. He was concerned about the fact that something had shifted in their consciousness, causing them to want to go get dressed and cover up.

Likewise, he was concerned that the people he had created and deemed “good” no longer felt that way and had stopped trusting his good story and had begun writing their own tragic one.

Gone was their innocence.

Gone was their belief that God knew what he was doing when he made them.

Gone was the untainted and fully transparent relationship they had with each other and their creator because a new player had moved into the scene that would change the game forever.

Shame had just set up camp, and he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

But the story doesn't end there…

Today’s Questions:

• What is it about yourself that makes you want to run and hide from God?
• What shame in your life exists that keeps you from being fully known to others?
• What habits or crutches do you rely on to help ease the pain of your emotional nakedness?