Divine Intimacy
Puberty is a weird time for everyone. No preteen girl wants to go bra shopping with their mom, as she holds up a training bra to their chest. Okay - no woman enjoys bra shopping period, but stick with me. One of the awkward conversations that comes up in puberty is shaving.
If you are a preteen girl reading this now - shaving is not that bad of a conversation. Just talk to your mom if you think it’s time. Don’t be embarrassed, it’s the least embarrassing part. Bra shopping is much worse!
But I digress. I was REALLY embarrassed when my legs were sprouting out wiry hairs. From about age 10 until 25, if it was winter I was a sweats and t-shirt girl. And once it was 60 degrees, I traded the sweats for basketball shorts. So when it was shorts season one day, I looked down - I was embarrassed. I was the new kid at school. We were living in a small apartment so I had limited clothes. And now my legs have this weird dark black hair on them. What should I do?
Panic ensued until I hit the shower that evening and saw my mom’s razor. How hard could it be? I finish one leg and switch to the other. And then it happened. I nicked my calf. I thought if I finished my stroke it would help. The skin curled up and blood was everywhere. What would I say or do? I quickly finished my shower and started first aid (on a cut that was just superficial but the water made it look like a stitches situation).
My parents eventually asked about the bandaid wrappers and bloody tissues in the bathroom trash can. My answer: “Uhhhhh….I got cut.”
“How?”
“Oh, uh. I think I picked a scab in the shower.”
*hours later….
“Hey, Mom, so how I got this was I tried to use your razor.”
She knew. It was obvious.
My pubescent brain was as dumb as Adam and Eve that day marked in history. Actually, they might have been dumber.
Here is the simple story, heard so many times:
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 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.
Genesis 3:6-7 NIV
The fruit in their hands was like the blood in my shower that day. “Why did I do this?”
In those 2 simple verses the damnation of all mankind. From that moment on we’ve been continually sinning. From that moment we’ve been disobedient.
Disobedience breaks intimacy with God.
When I think of the word disobedience, I think of the scene from the movie The Lion King after Mufassa saves Simba and Nala from the elephant graveyard. When Mufassa gets Simba alone he frustratedly hisses at him, “You deliberately disobeyed me.”
Sometimes, yes, we are deliberately disobeying God, but more often I think it looks like Paul: “For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15 NASB) For me, it isn’t always about eating the fruit. Sometimes it’s about breaking trust with God. I do my own thing in my way. Other times it looks more like selfishly using my time. I want to scroll on my phone when I wake up or hit snooze 7 more times than get up and meet God in the quiet of the morning when I know He wants to speak with me.
The story continues:
8 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. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
Genesis 3:8-10 NIV
God knew the second it happened. Actually, He saw the whole thing. They saw the fruit in their hand and quickly gobbled it down when they heard His footsteps. They threw the core and seeds. They might have even tried to bury the evidence. They quickly covered themselves with leaves. Guilt and shame hidden behind the facade of fig leaves.
I did a renovation once that at first glance seemed like a quick thing. If you watch shows like “This Old House” or “Fixer Uppers,” you know that facades are often just that. You open the walls and mold has taken over. This is how this one was. The plan was simply, take the original building down to studs on the inside and keep the outside. We pulled back the drywall on an exterior wall and there was the black mold staring us in the face. We thought “oh it’s not that bad.” We pulled out the mold-ridden insulation. Behind, guess what we found. You guessed it - more mold. It had eaten away at the structural studs and the sheathing holding the facade.
Hiding from God builds a barrier for intimacy with God.
Hiding behind the facade is just that. It places a barrier between you and God. Disobedience puts us in the place to either reunite with the Savior or step away further. Hiding the evidence (from an all-knowing, all-seeing God), puts a brick wall between you and Him.
Let me give you a quick building science lesson. Hiding the mold behind the drywall - out of sight; out of mind. Except mold thrives in dark enclosed spaces. The mold eats the insulation. It continues to chomp at the structural integrity. When it’s done, it starts to eat away at the other side - the facade - the thing you think you are hiding behind and putting on a good show.
Hiding your sin, sewing the fig leaves in front of you is a short term solution. Underneath sin is festering like black mold.
As you put your mask over your mouth so you can protect yourself from the mold, let me take you a step further in the story:
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Genesis 3:11-13 NIV
Like my night in that family’s apartment, God confronts the sin. The two flubbered over their words as much as I did. While I had no one to blame but myself, the man quickly turns and points to his partner. “She did it!” Actually, he throws blame at God for giving him “the woman.” God looks to her and she points downward “But the serpent confused me. He tricked me.”
There was no confusion on God’s commandment. But the first two sinners of the world made excuses like there was confusion to be had.
Excuses distance us from intimacy with God.
If disobedience breaks the tie of intimacy and hiding builds a facade putting something between you and God, then excuses are just a deflection to allow you to further that gap.
I’ll go back to The Lion King analogy. Think about the scene of Simba finding Muffasa trampled on the ground. I’ll save you a few tears and skip right to the point. Simba realizes Muffasa is dead - the bond between them broken. Then Scar tells him it was his fault. You see Simba physically take the step back. He puts Scar physically between him and his father. And then after further conversation, Simba runs. He puts distance between him and the scene.
Isn’t that what we do too? Even if we don’t physically run, don’t we put distance between ourselves and our Father.
Look The Lion King isn’t a Christian movie nor an alternative to the Word and the Truth. But there is one other thing I’d like to draw your attention to. The only way Simba could resolve the hurt, the only way to save himself, the only way for restoration was to return to Pride Rock.
John draws us to this same place in Revelation 22. We will return to Eden. Eden, again, will be restored to its former - and perfect - glory. The way in which Eden is restored is through Jesus. And saving from Jesus happens through intimacy. We too have to return to the scene of the crime.
The Fall is a story often foreshadowing our doom and gloom. It’s where the ugliness of sin was created. And sin has festered more than gross black mold in our world. It’s fed on sinners throughout history and feeds off the Enemy’s rule on this earth.
But the Fall in Eden also speaks to the restoration of intimacy with God. It, too, foreshadows our salvation and future glory.
1 - Accountability restores intimacy with God.
God doesn’t let the first sinners off the hook. He doesn’t say “oh that’s okay,” give them a hug, and follows up with a night of mini golf and ice cream. God calls for accountability from them. He turns to each of them one-on-one and tells them exactly how they sinned (v. 14-20).
The key to this though - is that we have to accept that accountability. He knows we are sinners. Romans 3:23 reminds us that we all sin. He expects it but does not accept it.
2 - Discipline restores intimacy with God.
God doesn’t accept sin. You see the punishments they must endure (and women continue to endure - thanks, homies). The biggest act of discipline was removal from Eden. There are repercussions to our sin. Ask Zaccheus who had to humbly return overpaid taxes when He encountered Jesus (Luke 19:1-10)
But discipline has another connotation. Merrien Webster actually shows the first definition of discipline as something similar to self-control. It’s the discipline we think of when we think of gym rats. The guys that show up on good days and bad days and crank out a 45 minute workout. The guys that hit protein and water goals. The guys who wear a tank top and their muscles, even their little brachialis, are bulging.
Once we take accountability, we close the gap between us and the brick wall dividing us from God. Discipline is showing up daily and removing the wall brick-by-brick. On good days, we can manage removing wheelbarrows full. On the bad, we still show up and chip away at the mortar between the bricks.
3 - Trust restores intimacy with God.
God trusts us. Even after the worst day in history, God allows them to continue to have authority on earth. God entrusts them with children (see Genesis 4).
But Adam and Eve had to trust Him too. God made them clothing. Have you ever tried to dress a small child? Let’s start more simply, have you tried to get shoes on a toddler? They curl their toes. They pull their leg away instead of driving their knee toward you to push their foot in.
We don’t know for certain how the dressing of Adam and Eve went. We know that God gave them clothes and they accepted. But we don’t know for sure if they easily slipped into it. It’s not like they ever had clothes before to know how it works. We know how to put a shirt on because others are wearing one. It was foreign to them. I can see them drawing away from God and He tries to gently place the clothes over their heads.
The wall is down and trust comes when we see the Father’s outstretched hand. Trust from Him extended to us.
But do you trust Him enough to take His hand in yours?
