We all know the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Genesis 3:1-7
Adam and Eve had sinned against God. In direct disobedience to His command, they had eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
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."
Genesis 3:8
They moved from being innocently naked and unashamed to being self-conscious over their nakedness and desperate to cover themselves. Now we see their shame and guilt also drives them to hide from God. Their sin has broken their intimate relationship with Him.
What does it mean to know yourself naked-or worse to know yourself and your partner naked?
Naked means vulnerable and easily damaged. Naked means subject to judgement for beauty and health. Naked means unprotected and unarmed. This is why Adam and Eve hid, their faults stood out, their vulnerability was on display. This now fully realized, they felt unworthy to stand before God.
Beauty shames the ugly, Strength shames the weak, Death shames the living, and the Ideal shames us all. Inside each of us dwells a critical voice that makes us doubt the value of our life or life itself---perhaps we should stop listening.
We have a tendency to confuse our performance in some aspect of life with our worth as a person. We compare ourselves to others. No matter how good we are at something, or how we rank our accomplishments, there is someone out there who makes us look incompetent. We seek approval from people, yet approval will only be satisfying when it comes from God. The only approval we need is God's.
After all, we were made in God's image. We all have a spark of the Devine in us that belongs not to us, but to God. If we lived in Truth, if we spoke the Truth, then we could walk with God once again and respect ourselves and others in the world. We might strive to set the world strait.
This means embracing and loving the sinner who is yourself, as much as forgiving and aiding someone else who is stumbling and imperfect.
Carl Jung
We need to remember that we are His beloved.
When Jesus spoke he was free from the need to create an impression. He was free to speak truth in love. He was free with the freedom of the Beloved of God.
But we are driven by ego and pride. Because of this, we are no longer one with God.
Yet, we long for God, His Approval, His creation, and for the innocence of childhood.
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
Perhaps it is not just the emergence our self consciousness, the rise of our moral knowledge of death and the Fall, that threatens us and makes us doubt our own worth. Perhaps it is instead our unwillingness to walk with God despite our fragility and propensity for evil.
Every person is deeply flawed. We all fall short of the glory of God.
The Bible is structured so that everything after the Fall is presented as a remedy for that Fall, and a way out of evil. Read the Word.
Fall on your knees and ask Jesus to come into your heart. He loves you , just the way you are. He will forgive your sins, change your heart, heal your pain, and set you free. He will lead you down the right path. He will add purpose to your life.
He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Do this and you can stand up strait with your shoulders back and once again walk with God.