In my last blog, I shared three nuggets of truth from my book, Intimacy with God, Ourselves and Others, into which God took me deeper.  The first related to Adam and Eve hiding after they sinned.  In the New American Standard Bible, we read,

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.  And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
Genesis 3:7, 8

From the passage, it is obvious that they hid from each other (sewed fig leaves to cover their loins) and God (hid in the trees).  They were hiding from themselves as well.  The question is why did they and why do we hide.

We can understand why they hid from God.  He had warned them that if they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would die.  They ate.  Surely, death awaited them if God could find them.  What they did not understand, is that they were already experiencing death.  Their relationships with God, each other and themselves had suffered a death.  A spiritual death.

So, while we can understand why they hid from God, why hide from each other?  They both ate of the fruit. It is not as if the one did something wrong that the other did not do.  It is not as if either hurt the other.  Or, is it?  In a later blog, we will consider how our sin affects those around us.  For now, read the story of Achan’s sin (Joshua 7:1-26)

The reason they hid from each other is their loss of purity and holiness when they sinned against God.  They may have not known that that was what was missing, but they knew something was missing.  They were less in their own eyes and so, expected to be less in the other’s eyes.  They were trying to hide this “lessness” they felt within themselves.  It fits with that common phrase, “If no one saw you do it, did you do it?”  For them, the phrase worked this way, “If no one else could see their shame, did they have shame?”

We continue to hide this shame by trying to prove we are better than we are and definitely better than others.  We may not say we are perfect, but we will say we are not so bad.  We are good, overall.  The truth is that we all fall short of God’s standard.  This falling short is what we try to hide from God, each other and ourselves.

In addition, they were hiding from themselves.  Adam blamed Eve and God for his actions.  Eve blamed the serpent.  Neither blamed themselves.  Often, we hide from our failings, shortcomings and the downright bad things we have done.  We tend to blame others.  A favorite saying by a comedian was, “The devil made me do it.”  Well, often the devil is us.  We put blinders on when it comes to our less attractive attributes.

The way we come out of hiding is through faith in Christ.  He restores our relationship with God, each other and ourselves.  We do not need to hide from God, safe people and ourselves.  While some things we may never share with others, we do need to be honest before God and with ourselves.  The honesty begins with asking what we are hiding and why we are hiding it.  Next, we let God heal us through our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.  How much we share with others will depend on the leading of God.  His healing we can always share.