Out of Hiding: Finding the Peace You Lost

"Now both of them were naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." One verse. That's all we get of what life looked like before everything went sideways. But what a verse.

Think about the last time you felt completely at peace. Not just relaxed — actually at peace. No anxiety about tomorrow. No replaying yesterday's conversation in your head. No wondering if you said the wrong thing or wore the wrong outfit. Just... peace.

That's what this verse is describing, but turned up to eleven. Adam and Eve are standing there, completely exposed to each other and to God, and there's zero shame. None. They're not worried about what the other person thinks. They're not comparing themselves to anyone. They're not hiding anything because there's nothing to hide.

This is what God's original design looked like. Complete openness. Total vulnerability. Perfect peace. They could look at each other and just be — no performance, no pretending, no protecting themselves. And here's the thing: they didn't even know how good they had it. You can't appreciate the absence of shame until you've felt it.

We spend so much energy managing what people see. We curate our social media. We rehearse what we're going to say. We hide parts of ourselves we think are too much or not enough. And we're exhausted. But in the garden, before everything broke, there was none of that. Just two people, fully known and fully loved.

That's the peace God wants for you. Not a feeling that comes and goes with your circumstances, but a deep settledness that says, "I am fully known by God, and I am fully loved." The rest of this week, we're going to walk through how that peace got lost — and how Jesus came to give it back.