Forty Days Full - An Invitation To Real Life

Day Thirteen: The Great Cover-up

“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 3:7 NIV)

A fter Adam and Eve felt the pain of their shame, they tried to take care of the problem themselves. They sowed fig leaves together to hide their nakedness. This is another form of self- protection and humanity has been striving to cover their shame ever since. Our way of hiding weakness is always feeble in comparison to the work of God. What would have happened if Adam and Eve called out to God when they first felt shame? They had every reason to trust Him. Their history with Him should have taught them to cry out, "Daddy! We're naked and we don't know what to do." How different things might have been if that were their response. But, just like us, shame produces a self-loathing that we don't want anyone to see. So we cover-up. There has been a movement since the sixties to deny the existence of shame and just live naked. Nudist colonies have come up with the rationale that, clothing is the great evil that ails mankind. There was a group that became somewhat famous for this on the Hawaiian Island of Kawaii. Where the road ends at the Na Pali Mountains, they took off their clothes and built tree houses. In this warm tropical paradise, they would recreate Eden. I have a dear friend who was a hippy back in the sixties. He was a young surfer who spent a summer in Hawaii. He decided to visit this community because it