When we feel ashamed, we can end up hiding ourselves away. We try and become invisible to others, and to God. We feel like we’re in darkness, consumed by feelings of shame and guilt. Adam and Eve experienced this too. When they’d eaten the fruit that God had told them not to eat, they were suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of shame. The Bible says that ‘the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden’ (Genesis 3:8 NIV). When we’ve done something wrong, or something wrong has happened to us, we can feel that need to hide ourselves. We may even feel that we’re not good enough to come into God’s presence. But God never turns us away. In fact He’ll come looking for us when we’ve gone into hiding. God already knew what Adam and Eve had done, yet He looked for them: ‘But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”’ (Genesis 3:9 NIV). He doesn’t abandon us in our shame, instead He comes to find us, brings us back into the light and then gives us a second chance. When Jonah tried to escape God and hid on the ship, God gave Him a second chance to go to Nineveh. ‘Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time’ (Jonah 3:1 NIV). And He comes to us a second time too. Shame doesn’t need to stop us. We don’t need to hide. God’s promise of a second chance is always there for us.
