It seems that God was indeed trying to hide something from Adam and Eve.

I noticed it this year as I was working toward one of my New Years goals.

At the start of each new year I always make a goal to read through the Bible cover to cover. Even though I don’t always make it through, I give it a shot anyways. Since Genesis is at the beginning, that book tends to get a lot of coverage. 🙂

Something new caught my attention from the account of Adam and Eve. It seems that God did actually want to hide something from them.

Check it out.

Genesis 3:4
the serpent told the Woman, “you won’t die. God know that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
When the woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it-she’d know everything!-she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”-saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
God said, “Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”

It would seem that God was withholding from Adam and Eve, the knowledge that there was an area of lack in their life.

They had been running around with no clothes on for who knows how long, but their lack of clothes had never hindered them from being who God created them to be, and doing what God created them to do. Their lack of clothes never hindered their relationship with each other, or with God.

When they ate the fruit, they didn’t feel shame at having disobeyed God. They didn’t hide from God because they felt bad about ignoring him and doing what He told them not to do.

They hid because they became consumed by the knowledge that there was something they were missing and they immediately were overcome with shame at what they lacked.

I find this so fascinating. Why is it that God would want to hide our areas of lack from us?  It seems that nothing brings us greater shame or makes us hide more than the thought that we don’t have what it takes, or that we lack something required for living up to our potential.

It makes sense on a psychological level that God knew that we would be happier if we didn’t know that we were lacking in any area. It seems that we humans most often get tripped up by trying to compensate for areas where we feel weak. We run from things that expose our weakness, and we cover our areas of lack so maybe no one will notice that we don’t have what it takes.

Shame is a great motivator. But not very satisfying because it makes us hide who we are, rather than embrace who we are.

I guess God wanted to spare us all this by just making us blissfully unaware that we don’t measure up. What if we embraced God’s original intention for us and just decided not to have shame about the fact that we lack in some areas? What if we could look at ourselves and not be moved by our own inadequacy?

I love what happens later in the story. It says that God makes clothes for Adam and Eve.

I love how God himself decides to jump in and cover over our areas of weakness. Plan A was that we wouldn’t even know we had an area of lack, but I think God’s plan B is equally telling of His goodness. Plan B was that God himself would cover our areas of lack.

Let’s embrace this “Naked truth” as we move into a new year. Our areas of lack don’t hinder us from being awesomely made in God’s image. Instead of embracing shame for our areas of weakness, let’s walk in boldness with the knowledge that God himself is in the business of covering the areas where we feel inadequate or fear that we don’t have what it takes.