Who told you that you were Naked?

What ideals are you pursuing that aren’t yours to pursue?

If you’ve heard me talk about the bible, you’ve probably heard me say that one of my favorite verses is the bible is this lovingly pursuing question asked to Adam by Jesus: “Who told you, you were naked?”

I want to take a look at this pivotal story of “the fall”. The event in the Garden of Eden that changed everything—the event that would have been initiated by any of us had we been in the place of Adam or Eve.

Early on in the book of Genesis, God essentially gives humans the reign of the world. They can eat anything in the Garden, except they are forbidden from eating from one specific tree; a limit of love. The important point that I want to latch onto in this story is that God gave Adam and Eve trees to use as food. The purpose of the trees was food; that is essential to the story.

“Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” -Genesis 1:29

Later on, the devil trys to tell Adam and Eve that he knows better for them than God. Long story short, they are fooled by him, as any of us would have been, and they eat from the forbidden tree.

Immediately their eyes are opened. They become aware that they were naked, and they run and hide. They run and hide from the Father who has never seen them as anything other than naked. Adam and Eve then take all the leaves off of the trees and try to make cloths out of them as they hide themselves.

“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. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, ” Where are you?” He answered, ” I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was named; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? -Genesis 3:7-11

Remember how I said that God gave us trees for the purpose of food? As soon as they ate from the tree, their eyes were opened to a problem that was never a problem in the first place. They began using a tree for a purpose for which it was never intended.

To recap, they were always naked. Clothing was always missing from their lives, but they were never supposed to know it. They never had any problem with the fact that they were naked until they exposed themselves to something that said: “Hey, have you realized this is missing from your life?”

Adam and Eve spent time and resources pursuing a need they never would have had had they never jumped off course.

God doesn’t ask: “Why are you naked?” He asks: “Who told you that you are naked?”

Who told you that you are naked?

It makes me think: what ideals that I am pursuing are mine, and what ideals am I pursing that are Gods? What “needs” in my life am I attempting to fulfill that were never mine to have in the first place?

As I sit on the mountain where I am living in Honduras, I think I’m realizing there are a lot of desires that I have that were never actually mine to have. If you scroll through social media for any amount of time, you’ll probably find yourself wishing for things that you never should have viewed as a need.

On the mountain, I find myself sometimes getting caught in the weeds. I worry about my place in friendships, if my portable charger is going to last until I can charge it again, or when am I going to get to eat a meal that isn’t rice and beans. Why are these ideals that I am pursuing? Are they mine, or are they God’s?

Who told me I was naked?

As I sit here, I am prompted to ask you this: are the things you are pursuing ideals given to you by God or the result of you reaching for a fig leaf that you should have never picked up in the first place?