I read a
Bible study on “Overcoming Fears.” The
book asks “What were you afraid of as a child?”. Initially, the only thing I remembered was
thinking that nighttime turned the neighbor’s bushes into big bears that were
going to get me. (I eventually grew smart enough to know that it was only the
wind making the bushes move.) Then I
remembered, as a child I was also afraid of messing something up or getting in
trouble.
I now find
this realization curious, since I can probably count on both hands the times I
actually got into any trouble while I was growing up. Then again, I did have perfectionistic
tendencies. My first grade teacher told
my parents that by the time I got my pencils arranged just the way I wanted
them, most of my classmates were done with their worksheets.
I used to
think college knocked my perfectionism out of me. I had realized that I could put pressure on
myself and go nuts, or I could be a ‘B’ student and enjoy college. I chose the latter…and only occasionally felt
guilty for it.
As it turns
out, somewhere along the way “fear of messing up” morphed into “fear of not
being good enough.”
In my early
20s, I worked in a university Career Services Office for about six months. Some co-workers were talking about students
wearing black or navy business suits for their job interviews. I proclaimed that I would wear my red suit to
stand out from the crowd. They rolled
their eyes and told me that would be the wrong thing to do, but I shrugged it
off. I thought they were stuffy and I didn’t
care too much about what they thought of me.
In my 30s, I
again worked for a university Career Services Office. This time it was for a prestigious graduate
program and I was there for seven years.
I learned about resumes, making first impressions, and all the right
things to teach our students. Only this
time, I grew paranoid about the stuffy black suits. Instead of being confident that I could be
myself, I worried that I had to be “polished” and make the right impression on
everyone I met.
I’m not
blaming the job, in fact, it was my favorite.
I loved helping students and watching them succeed. I realize now that I let knowledge instill
fear instead of confidence in me.
I was
talking to my husband, wondering aloud where these fears came from. He asked if I always needed to know “the
why.” I said, “How could I fix it if I
didn’t know the why?”.
In thinking
about this, I felt like God was telling me to “Go back to the beginning.” Not the beginning of my childhood, but of His
Word. I decided to read the first few
chapters of Genesis in The Message
for a fresh perspective.
Right away,
two things jumped out at me. Genesis
2:25 says “The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no
shame.” Now granted, they were the only
two people on earth, but they wandered around outside naked and felt no shame! Can you imagine? Even in our so-called “liberated” culture
today, being naked in public is controversial, and depending on where you are,
illegal.
I believe
Adam and Eve felt no shame in being naked because, as new creations, they were
confident that they were as God intended them to be. I’m not saying Adam had washboard abs or that
Eve had a perfect figure. I’m not saying
that, because those are important to us, not God. (That’s a whole other blog!) My point is that when we are being who God
intends for us to be, we have no reason to feel shame. While we may not walk earth naked as Adam and
Eve did, we can walk in the freedom of being a child of God.
Our choices however,
can take away our freedoms. In just
seven short verses, Adam and Eve move from feeling no shame to hiding from
God. God said they could eat from any tree in the garden, except one – the
Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and –Evil. There
were many trees. They had lots of good
choices. But Eve and then Adam chose
instead to eat from the one tree God had said “no” to.
A clever
serpent tricked Eve, she ate and then she shared with Adam. In Genesis 3:8 we read, “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.” Bam! The first recorded time a human being has
attempted to hide from God because they did something wrong.
As a child,
if I wanted to hide from you, I ran to the corner of a room and covered my
eyes. In my little girl mind I thought,
“If I can’t see them, they can’t see me!”
Why I still bothered to run to the corner, I’m not sure. But Adam and Eve’s hiding technique was about
as effective as my childhood one.
Genesis
3:9-13 says “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?’
The Man
said, ‘The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree,
and, yes, I ate it.’
God said to
the Woman, ‘What is this that you’ve done?’
‘The serpent
seduced me,’ she said, ‘and I ate.’”
Now we have
the first recorded time a human being said they were afraid. That’s the second thing that jumped out at
me. Adam was afraid because he knew he
was naked – something he wasn’t supposed to know. He knew that he was naked because he had
eaten from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and –Evil – something he wasn’t
supposed to do.
I think God
sent me to the beginning of His Word to teach me that the only time I need to
be afraid is when I disobey Him. I think
God sent me to the beginning to show me that being afraid and hiding don’t
work.
God punished
the serpent, then Eve, then Adam. I never
noticed before that God spoke to them in order.
He cursed the serpent to slink on his belly and eat dirt. He gave Eve the pain of childbirth and Adam
pain in working the ground for food. God
still allowed Adam and Eve the power to create life – through children and the
food necessary to sustain them.
Then Genesis
3:21 says “God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.” It
doesn’t say how God made this clothing, but it would seem an animal was
sacrificed. Many think that this act in
the garden is God beginning the pattern of a blood sacrifice to forgive sin. Whether you believe that or not, it is surely
an act of kindness by God to make clothing for Adam and Eve. He did not force them to continue to hide or
be ashamed.
God is the
same today. He does not force us to hide
or be afraid or bear shame. Listen to a
simple but wonderful truth. “This is how
much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be
destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” John 3:16 MSG
The end of
Genesis chapter 3 says that God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of
Eden. That appears to be cruel…unless you
read the reason. “God said, ‘The Man has
become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to
evil. What if he now should reach out
and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never – this cannot happen!’”
God did not expel
Adam and Eve from the garden to take away something good. He expelled them to protect them. Because Adam and Even ate from the Tree of
Knowledge-of-Good-and–Evil, they knew more than they were meant to as humans. If they also ate from the Tree-of-Life, they
would have to bear that burden forever. God
expelled them from the garden to prevent that.
What God did
for Adam and Eve, God will do for you and me.
He will forgive us, take away our shame, and protect us. With God, you and I can live life, from the
beginning to the end, unafraid!
