Many of us are in hiding.
Fear of intimacy is our subject for my next message. We’ve been talking about what it’s like to fear rejection and to fear failure. But fearing intimacy is something you would think most of us could check off of our list of things overcome. All of us desire close relationships. Most of us have friends or family members that we spend ninety percent of our non-school, non-work time with. Some of us can’t go to the bathroom without taking our best friends with us. We surround ourselves with people we’ve decided to share our lives with and yet many of us are still walking around scared to death that someone might see inside.
Shaun Groves sang a song a few years back called “Welcome Home”. It was a song to God saying in a nutshell that it’s OK for God to come inside and see what’s going on. It made me think and made me wonder if I’ve left the hurricane shutters on my windows to long–if I’ve been in hiding from the one who could truly renovate this heart.
When we get really honest we find that we are afraid to be seen naked–not physically naked (which may be scary in it’s own way)–but emotionally and psychologically naked. How vulnerable do we feel when someone discovers our weaknesses and our hang-ups? How frail do we realize we are when someone knows our temptations and our desires? When is it safe to allow someone to get close enough to see the ugly spots from our past and the struggling points of our present?
I looked back to Genesis 3:9-10 when Adam ran from the most intimate relationship he ever had. He flat out told God that he knew he was naked, and that he was afraid. So he hid.
The beauty of God’s forgiveness in Christ is found in the miraculous thing that takes place in us by the Holy Spirit. We are being restored into the imago dei–the image of God. We were once free to run naked through the garden but sin has made us afraid of the most loving being that could ever know us.
I’m grateful for the restoration that is going on in my, day by day, minute by minute. I don’t want to hide anymore. Imagine the space we would create for each other, to be free and to be freely known if only we weren’t afraid.
