Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are!
“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?”
~ Genesis 3:9 NKJV
One of the hardest parts about disobeying God isn’t just the choice you made, it’s the shame you feel afterward. The shame of knowing you didn’t follow his voice. The shame of stepping into something he warned you about. The shame of dealing with consequences you created because you followed your flesh instead of his will.
Shame doesn’t just make you feel bad, it convinces you that hiding is safer than healing. So you start avoiding anything or anyone that shines light on the dark place you’re in, because light forces you to face what you’ve been trying to ignore. And when you’re already embarrassed, disappointed in yourself, replaying your decisions in your mind, the last thing you want is someone else seeing what you see.
Some of you reading this know exactly what this feels like. You made a choice you regret. You followed your flesh, ignored God’s warning, or stepped into an opportunity or relationship you knew wasn’t good for you. Maybe you even went back to something God had already delivered you from, a place, a habit, a person, a cycle you swore you’d never return to. Now you’re sitting in the consequences, wondering how you even got here.
That is when the weight of shame sinks in and you worry about what people will think or about being judged and talked about; so instead of facing it, you hide behind the version of yourself you want people to see. You avoid the people who love you, the ones who will pray you through and help pull you out. You isolate, pretend you’re fine, stay in toxic spaces that are draining you or unhealthy relationships that are breaking you, just to keep from exposing what you’ve been masking behind the scenes; because if you leave, the truth about the weight you’ve been silently carrying will come to light.
This pattern isn’t new, it started all the way back in the garden.
Before Adam and Eve sinned, they were naked and unashamed. Shame didn’t exist until sin entered. But the moment it did, they hid, just like we do. They tried to cover themselves, made excuses, blamed each other and tried to manage their shame instead of bringing it to God.
Hiding doesn’t protect you and it doesn’t keep people from talking; it traps you and keeps you from being free. The longer you hide, the easier it becomes to hold on to your excuses, play the blame game, and believe the lie that you’re “okay” how you are and where you are; but God can’t heal what you won’t reveal, restore what you pretend isn’t broken or free what you keep locked behind closed doors.
God never calls you out of hiding to shame you, he calls you out to free you. When He asked Adam, “Where are you?” it wasn’t because God lacked information. God knew exactly where Adam was. The question was an invitation for Adam to acknowledge where he was, not his location, but his condition. Where was his heart? Where was his obedience? Where was the version of him that was formed in God’s image? Sin and shame had distorted Adam’s vision and changed his posture, making hiding, excuses, and playing the victim feel safer than facing the truth.
Once Adam and Eve realized they were naked, everything changed and instead of turning to God, they tried to manage it themselves. They sewed fig leaves together and made aprons in an attempt to “Cover Themselves”, just like us when we realize we’ve drifted from where God placed us. We try to fix what only God can heal and create our own protection instead of staying under God’s covering. The moment you start “Covering Yourself”, you step outside of the covering God designed to keep you safe and that’s when the danger begins. Because “Covering Yourself” only provides a outward covering to protect your image and that only lasts so long. The fig leaves eventually dry out, the aprons eventually shrink, the masks eventually slip, the pretending eventually wears you down, and the version of yourself you present to people eventually falls apart.
But when God covers you, he doesn’t give you something temporary, he provides something eternal and life altering. His covering doesn’t hide you, it uncovers you, frees you, protects you and cleans you from the inside out.
The moment you acknowledge where you are, repent, come out of hiding and back under Gods covering, shame loses its grip, the enemy loses its access, the real you can finally come to the surface, and you can be free to be who he has always intended for you to be.
God is standing right where you left him, asking the same question he asked in the garden: “Where are you?”
Step out of the dark, come out of hiding, drop the fig leaves, silence the shame, remove the mask and return to the place where Gods covering makes you free again!
#PrayThroughIt
