It’s usually around 6:45am. I’m bleary-eyed and trying to make my way through that morning’s Luke reading, and I hear the all too familiar sounds of discord. Disagreements between children in my house typically go something like this. There are more than enough toys in their room. Child A sees that Child B has a really cool truck. Child A takes Child B’s really cool truck. Child B retaliates by crying and/or hitting. Child A begins crying. My typical reaction that early in the morning is not usually pastoral or tender. I am irritated that peace has been broken, and relationships are proving in the wee hours of the morning to be anything but perfect. My children. Myself. Everyone.
Last week, we ended our story on the precipice of what every human experiences.
“It was very good... until it wasn’t”
It is very good that my sons have toys in their room with which to play. It is very good that they have one another with whom to play. It is the very height of not good when arguments, jealousy, and selfishness crowd out the joy that is to be shared in a room full of toys and a playmate with whom to enjoy them. This is where we are in our story, friends.
On the heels of creation, very good creation, we see our first tension. God placed His beloved Man and Woman in a garden with every means of provision at their disposal. He qualified that there was a tree whose fruit didn’t lead to life, and He asked they abstain from partaking of that particular tree. This was their only restriction in a life so full and glorious. There was the birthplace of seeds of doubt. Is God really as good as He said He was? Is He trying to withhold something from us? Their doubts were fueled by the voice of a deceiver who added to the words of God and manipulated what they knew to be true. In the wake of their doubt and distrust, they heard a voice in the garden:
“Who told you that you were naked?”
It’s interesting that God asks a question. And not just a question, but THIS question. If I had just gotten done creating the world and setting up two people to steward everything I’d made, and they pulled a stunt like this, my first question would’ve been something a little more like:
“What’s wrong with you?!”
“What were you thinking?!”
“WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!”
It would look more like my early-morning, pre-caffeinated rage. But God isn’t an unholy mother without her coffee. What He is is beautiful; instead, God asks, “Who told you that you were naked?”
I don’t hear anger, I hear concern.
I hear compassion. I hear grief.
I hear a God who loves his creation, saying, “You’ve always been naked, and you’ve always lived shamelessly and guiltlessly before Me. So whose voice have you listened to and allowed to define you instead of mine? It’s causing you such shame, don’t you see?”
This shift is so subtle, and so very damaging. By believing lies about what their Creator said, every relationship they’ve ever known is torn asunder, and doubt fills their hearts. Doubts about God’s goodness and generosity. Doubts about their bodies. Doubts about their lover’s intentions for them. We often believe the lies about ourselves when it comes to our appearance, capabilities, and temperament, and we believe the lies about God when it comes to His nature, His love and His ability to carry us. These lies are not new to humanity. They go back to the portraits of new humanity painted for us in Adam & Eve. They were confronted with lies, and they succumbed to those lies, and it ultimately rendered them believing that what they had and who they were was not enough.
And then shame.
Shame is a powerful weapon against the human heart. It drove them to hide what God made good, and it drove them to blame one another. What was once unhindered and unashamed was now restricted and guilt-ridden.
This next song is born from that struggle birthed in that garden, which has persisted in the heart of every man, woman and child through every century in every nation since that day. Their story is our story, and we have a Maker, who asked then, and still declares today, “Who told you you’re not enough?”
It is from this perspective that we wrote, Enough. How does our distrust impact the heart of God? Enough are the words I hear the Lord sing over me when I am prone to doubt His heart for me:
Where are you?
What have you done?
Did I not make you
daughters and sons?
Did you not hear Me
when I pledged you my love?
Have I not given enough?
Who told you, you’re not enough?
Shame entered in
Trust crowded out
A life of sin,
wasteland and drought
I watched you run
From the sound of my call
Was that taste worth it all?
Who told you, you’re not enough?
You were made for much more than this
You were made for much more than this
You were made for much more than this
We were made for much more, much more than this
Who told you, you’re not enough?
Where are you
What have you done?
I have made you
daughters and sons.
Our refrain is “You were made for much more than this.” And we were. God never intended grief, pain and turmoil to mark our lives forever. Even in the very first pages of humanity’s struggle depicted in the garden, God foreshadows a way forward. A way back to Eden. A way back to very good.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” -Genesis 3:15 ESV
Here God speaks of a Promised One who would one day come to vanquish all seeds of doubt, deception and discord. Shame and death will be triumphed over, but you’re going to have to come back to hear that part of the story.
Until next time, imagine the perfect playroom with a loving sibling to play with and know that you, too, were made for much more than disagreement, shame and ruin.
Amen, beautifully written !