Friday, November 21, 2008

"Hide My Guilt"

"And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden." Genesis 3:8

My little granddaughter is only ten months old so her knowledge is so limited. But today she was sitting in her high chair and I was at the kitchen sink and she dropped her bottle for the fifth time. I looked at her and the look on her face when I asked her if she dropped her bottle again seemed to say,"What bottle? I don't know what you are talking about." Her expression, honestly, appeared to be that of someone who was trying to ignore the conversation to hide their guilt. Even if she was able to fully comprehend the situation and was actually trying to hide the fact that she dropped it, there was no way she could hide her guilt-- I saw everything. I saw what happened. I was well aware of the fact that she had dropped her bottle. There was no hiding it from Nanna.

It reminded me of how we respond to God. When we "mess up", when we miss the mark, when we disobey, when we sin, we may try to hide our guilt or change the subject- but He knows. You can't hide it from Him. He sees everything. He sees what you've done, or haven't done- whatever the case may be. That was one of the first lessons He taught us in the Garden of Eden.

Adam tried to hide his guilt from God's presence. He tried to hide it behind a fig leaf. He tried to hide it behind excuses. He tried to hide it behind his wife. He even tried to change the subject by shifting the blame- but none of it worked. He couldn't hide his guilt from God's all seeing eye. He couldn't hide it, neither can we. We can come up with all kinds of "devices" to cover our guilt but it won't work. Therefore, we might as well come clean before Him and acknowledge what we have done. You know, we can never be successful in covering up our guilt, but God can. Once we confess it and repent, He can cover it by putting it under the blood and in the sea of forgetfulness. Wouldn't you much rather let Him deal with your guilt then you try to do something with it?

Have a great day. We try so hard to cover up our guilt and the only way it can be "covered" is by bringing it out in the open-- and letting God deal with covering it.

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