I have a friend who would say,
"I know He's real, 'cause He kept me...All these years, He kept me."
He would cup his hands in front of his great, big self and show me how that felt to him; sometimes smiling, sometimes eyes full of tears.
His story is difficult.
And as long as I have known him, he has struggled in the certainty of his own testimony.
(There's probably moments that we all do.)
He has often had to fight within himself to regain it.
On those days, he felt unprotected.
Without a shield.
Without covering.
Wondering why things happened as they did.
Soul-crushing things.
Without someone he could count on... to keep watch over him.
Someone...to cover his back.
And the pain of that vulnerability, sometimes rolled into a great fear.
I've been reading through the opening of the Genesis story and that's the issue I'm seeing is the weightiest concern of the couple who find themselves there.
God had told them not to eat of the one tree or they would die.
Which is interesting to me because they had no knowledge of what it meant to die.
At least from an experiential perspective.
They'd never been to a memorial service.
I remember as a kid...maybe 10 years old trying to process what death meant, not coming from a home of faith, it was staggering; even overwhelming to consider.
I saw the gray-skinned body of my Grandpa, lying in an ornately designed coffin.
Twas the first time I recall seeing what "death" looked like...in a person...and it was gray.
I faintly remember a conversation with my mom after that.
There was a panic that ran through me....Knowing that one day I would turn to call for her, reach out for her and she would not be there to respond.
And I cried about it. For a good while I think.
Death's meaning was just beginning to find its place in my thinking because it was in the news.
People talked about it.
They went to things called funerals to observe it.
Wars created lots of it.
But in Genesis, they really didn't have any of that to view the concept from, and maybe that's why when you read through the passage, its odd to see that it wasn't death that made them afraid.
It was actually nakedness that made them hide.
"I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
How weird is that?
And I kept looking through that passage. Reading it over and over.
The Creator's response is, "Who told you that you were naked?"
Almost as though "naked" was a word that didn't fit in his vocabulary.
Otherwise, he may have said something like,
"Yes, you are naked and how objectionable that is to me, at least you found something to cover up with, it helps cover your hideous nakedness."
He doesn't address any of that at all. But then, why would he?
He made those bodies, in His own image.
So, after the couple explains the process of their poor decision-making, he turns to the serpent and pronounces judgement upon him.
But let's go back to the dialogue about being naked for a moment.
The Hebrew word appears ten times in the OT. Seven times apart from this passage.
(Once in Deuteronomy and six in Ezekiel.)
In each instance it either refers to a person or the nation of Israel, not so much as unclothed, but as being unprotected. In fact the root of the word means to be exposed.
Additionally, in four of those verses the phrase, "naked and bare," appears.
Enhancing the idea that there are two different ideas being presented.
God didn't see Adam and Eve's lack of clothing as a problem. In fact they didn't either until after the conversation with the serpent.
Being exposed is a different matter.
It's an internal issue, an internal anxiety; the sense of being uncared for or unprotected.
There are people in my life that I believe that I would do all I can to care for their safety.
It would hurt me deeply if they questioned that commitment.
I would feel ashamed if I didn't protect them.
Not because I have been contractually obligated but because I love them.
In one short dialogue the serpent convinced the only two people on earth that the one who made them in love, and beauty could not be trusted to keep their best future in his hands and they would be defenseless against everything to come. So, fear and mistrust were born, and they hid.
They no longer felt kept.
So many of us are still trying to find the courage to trust that God today. We fashion our lives around pursuance of things that seem to provide stability. Things that outwardly speak of strength and security.
In the end it's all just...fig leaves.
However, inwardly what we still really need is a simple trust
that He is a good, good God,
And that He is for us, like no other can or ever will be.