Forty Days Full - An Invitation To Real Life

Day Twelve: Shame On You!

“In you, Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness.” (Psalms 31:1 NIV)

As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” (Romans 10:11 NIV)

W hen Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, they saw that they were naked and were ashamed. They felt exposed for the first time even though they had never worn clothing. It is very important to understand that it was never God's plan for them to feel shame, but it was the first stage of death. Shame was a foreign concept to them. They were secure in their relationship to God and with each other. The environment God had created for them was a place of complete beauty, abundant provision and relational oneness. There was nothing in their world to produce fear, and therefore there was no shame. They were covered in love! God had promised that if they disobeyed and ate of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die. Since they had never seen death, I wonder what they thought would happen. Because death has reigned in our world for so long and we've seen it repeatedly on TV shows and movies, multiple images immediately come to our brain, but not them. Little did they know that the shame they immediately felt was the beginning of death coming upon them. That's right, shame is to the human soul what decay is to a body with no life in it. The rigor-mortis had begun.