Nakedness and Shame

Have you ever bought a new car…it doesn’t have to be brand new car…but a car that was new to you? Before possessing that car, you never really saw one on the road. You could have passed one often, but you never noticed it. But when YOU buy that car, all of a sudden it seems like everyone and their mother has your car. No matter where you go, someone is driving YOUR car. The truth is, they’ve always had YOUR car, but you only notice it after you own it.

For me, the same thing happens when I read Scripture. I have read passages of Scripture hundreds of times, but some how after I recognize an issue or a sin pattern or a fault in my life that particular passage jumps off the page and I notice it in a way I never have before. This happened to me yesterday as Pete was reading Genesis 2:25… “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

There is a shame epidemic in Christianity today. So many people feel ashamed. Ashamed in their friendships. Ashamed in their marriages. Ashamed in their relationship with God. Shame puts a choke-hold on grace. What you experience is living knowing you are free from the penalty of sin, but feeling as though you are not.

What jumps out to me about this passage is that there is a definite connection between nakedness and shame. Naked doesn’t just describe Adam and Eve’s physical appearance…it describes the condition of their heart. It illustrates their relationship with God.

Our willingness to live naked…to live exposed…to come out of hiding will determine the amount of shame with which we live. We can’t understand why we can’t grow in our intimacy with God. We can’t figure out why all of our friendships come to a standstill after the same exact amount of time. We convince ourselves that the pseudo-intimacy we experience in our marriage is as good as the real thing. Shame diminishes our potential for intimacy in every aspect of our life.

God’s desire for us is:

• Bare
• Open
• Exposed
• Uncovered
• Honest
• Known

What we live in is:

• Hidden
• Disguised
• Secret
• Concealed
• Buried
• Unknown

Adam and Eve hid behind fig leaves and thought that God wouldn’t see them.

I hide behind my reputation; my income; my status; my talent; my career; my smile; my ability to fake you out. What this type of hiding leads to is shame…and shame is the enemy of the life God longs for you to have.

Maybe today, you are experiencing shame in your life; in your marriage; in your friendships; in your relationship with God because for some time you have been unwilling to be naked. You have counted the cost of baring your soul and exposing your heart to God or to another…and the cost seems to high.

It will cost you something. To live naked will cost you a lot. But what you will gain is being known and feeling no shame.