Nakedness

By what way do you orient your

sense of right and wrong?

The struggle with the debates of morality is the aversion to God’s preference. The true north is the will of God. The first time this shows up in scripture is in the origin story of humanity. Adam and Eve were naked in the garden. They lived happily, living on the land and never hunted by animal predators.

And then, a being skilled at twisting words spoke to Eve and confused her sense of right and wrong with an argument that sounded logical: God is not good if he withholds from you. This argument’s seed of truth, although unspoken, is the truth that God is good. Conversely, any being who is not good is not qualified to be God. Already the ground work was played to convince Eve, and later Adam, that they themselves were qualified to be gods.

Before they judged themselves, who was judging them? There was no committee or review board on life excellence. But, suddenly, judgment entered their minds. It was exclusively from themselves, but they never changed back and they were harassed by their owns minds trying to walk a tight rope with a big stick and a can of water on either side: don’t get out of balance or you’ll fall.

God didn’t put them on the tight rope. He was going to teach them gymnastics in due time. And learning to do a flip with a spotter is far safer than a sudden, unskilled back flip, which in this case resulted in two broken necks, spiritually speaking.

Their minds, reeling with a new balancing act, accusing God of not knowing the law enough to keep them from failing it, Adam and Eve were no longer able to welcome God. God had to back away or they would die. So, he backed away and protected from eternally living in a broken world. But he also clothed them, fed them, and atoned for their sin so that, although they didn’t have the presence of the Lord, they still had his voice. And he never left them.