The other night as I lay in bed unable to sleep I began to pray to God about my desire to know a greater intimacy with Him.
All of a sudden the picture of me standing naked before God flashed in my mind. I quickly began to dismiss it as my brain making a twisted connection between being naked and being intimate--but I felt the Spirit prod me to dwell on this idea as strange as it seemed.
It has led me to enter 2017 with the desire to be naked. Naked before God. Naked before others.
Now, don't worry -- you'll not see me strutting around without clothes. But let me try explain.
Adam and Eve were naked in the garden and felt no shame. They walked with God in the cool of the day; and shared life together in unashamed nakedness. However, when sin enters the picture, they became self-aware, and ashamed. They hid from God, and they covered their nakedness from one another.
There are a few things here:
First - I don't want to hide from God at all. I believe He is good. I believe He has the best plans for me. I believe that by His Spirit I'm given life and life to the full. Why would I want to hide from that or cover myself in anyway from fully receiving ALL that He has to give? I think sometimes, we have a hard time believing that God really wants good for ME! We see all the imperfections, the failures, the weaknesses of our naked flesh--so we cover it up--we spend so much time trying to prove ourselves to God as worthy, or simply hiding from God as if we shouldn't expect good from Him. But to do so forgets that in Jesus we have been given a new and perfect humanity -- this is the humanity we claim, this is the life of glory we boldly are to live--naked and unashamed.
Second - I don't want to live my life try to perform, or meet a certain expectation of others through my own efforts. I don't want others to see "my clothing" -- my attempts to look presentable. I want them to see the naked me. The me who is imperfect, who struggles and who fails -- YET -- who is not naked in "my flesh" but is cover in grace, forgiven, set free -- with nothing to prove by my efforts. Instead I stand naked -- as God created me, as God redeemed me and is restoring me. Showing not what I have done, but only fully displaying what God has done and is doing in me.
Third - And please don't take this the wrong way...and don't you dare start sending me anything creepy! I want to see your nakedness too. I want to see the you God has created...that He is redeeming, restoring and displaying His glory through. I want to share in your imperfections and struggles and also in your glories and joys. Humans we called to walk TOGETHER with God in the cool of the day. Let's stop trying to present the "clothed, fixed up version of us" -- let's be real -- and so better reflect the amazing, active Life that Jesus gives to us.
