Naked Is Normal

So, I had been putting off blogging about the 5th and 6th chapters in Searching For God Knows What because they were really hard chapters to read. They seemed to go nowhere, as some chapters do with Donald Miller. It was hard to pull anything from them except for two things.

In chapter 5, Miller talks about how being naked is the point of Genesis 2 &3. This is the focus on Adam and Eve in these chapters. Miller talks about how Moses makes it a point to highlight this because they were naked and felt no shame. He then goes on to talk about how he's very insecure when he's naked (and, no doubt, most everyone is insecure when nude. I sure am!). He talks about how Adam and Eve weren't insecure because their focus was on God. God was the source of all their security. They didn't know what being apart from God was like. Their lives were in unison with the Father's. However, once the relationship was broken because of their sin, they knew it immediately. They became insecure about their bodies, so God had to give them clothing. This explains why we're always "covering up" our insecurities. We don't want anyone to see us "naked," so to speak.

In chapter 6, he elaborates on this idea of a relationship being broken. He says that we are now deformed and warlike creatures that cause pain to one another because Satan first caused us pain. He said that the only peaceful and innocent kingdom to ever be attacked was God's kingdom long ago at Creation. Now, our souls are deformed like the bodies of the children born after the Chernobyl accident in the 80's. There's really no way to make the deformity go away except by God's grace. Even then, the influences of the world keep trying to get us to become deformed again.

He also goes into a discourse on spiritual warfare, which is something I found quite interesting. The only place I've ever really heard spiritual warfare discussed was in the super conservative, charismatic church of my childhood. But he says that we are at war, not with one another, but with spiritual forces that are trying to destroy us. However, we have a trump card. You see, Jesus himself is interceding at the right hand of the Father for us; the Trinity is on our side! We can draw confidence from the Lord's strength. The Word of God is our weapon. So many times, we look at the Bible as the cosmic self-help book, when in reality, it is our Sword! Every word is written to draw us closer to the God who loves us and protect us from the Devil who hates us.