Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us… We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us… And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Nelson Mandela)
I was reading these words last night as I was going to bed, and I felt conflicted. I felt as though I understood but at the same time did not yet completely grasp the truth of this statement. The part of me created in God’s image, displaying a part of his own glory, is often the most difficult to let shine. John Eldredge says that we are afraid of letting our glory shine because we are exposing our true selves, our real nakedness of spirit and personality.
Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, we are afraid of our phsyical nakedness. But I wonder if there is some spiritual element to our fear of nakedness. I wonder if Adam and Eve’s fear of God in the Garden is akin to the fear of God we so often have in our innermost selves. If it is, the same fear begs the question, “Who told you that you were naked?” just as God asked them in the Garden.
We know we are naked because our true selves are only known by us. We feel naked. So we hide. We hide because we not only know our sins, but we know our glory. Sometimes we use the phrase, “the naked truth.” We know our nakedness, the truth about us that others do not know. So we do not let them see anything we would rather them not see.
But on the other hand, we know we were made for more than what we experience. So we have potential, yet we have wounds that can cripple us. Eldredge says, “You cannot love another while you are still hiding.” What we are hiding is our real selves.
And it is very difficult to unhide.
As hard as it is to do, I believe the only possible way to “unhide” our nakedness is to draw nearer to God. On the one hand, we have a fear of our deepest inadequacies. On the other, we have a fear of our truest self. But if our relationship with God is not intimate, we cannot love others because we are still hiding. We cannot love our spouse, we cannot love our kids, we cannot love our neighbor. We have unhidden glory, and we have unhidden inadequacies. Both comprise who we are: our nakedness. And both are healed and embraced as we draw near to God.
Drawing nearer to God… now that’s another entry! There is not a day that goes by that I wish I had more to know and embrace about drawing nearer to God.
