Oddly enough, I was in the shower yesterday wondering if “naked” had ever been the prompt for Five Minute Friday.  Lisa-Jo and I must have been on the same wave length.

Naked speaks of the physical and bare speaks of the spiritual.

I would never be in a nudist colony, but if you can get past your own inhibitions, being naked is freeing.  There’s nothing between you and the air.  You’re open to the element and it feels natural.

Being bare is freeing too. Letting your soul take flight with no shame.

My friend Sarah was talking to a group of high school girls about womanhood a few years ago, emphasizing the need to be naked and unashamed. It was the first time I really equated nakedness with vulnerability.

It was good for Adam and Eve to be naked – they were bare to themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When sin attached shame to their nakedness, they hid.  They hid their bodies with clothes and they hid their souls from connecting fully with God.

Had Adam and Eve been open and honest immediately, maybe things would have turned out differently.

We were made to be bare.

We were made to expose our hearts without shame. God craves an intimacy that can only develop when we let Him uncover us. We crave intimacy with people that can only develop when we uncover our hearts to other people.

One of the greatest (and challenging) acts of service we can give to another is to be bare, to be vulnerable, to reveal our brokenness. In our spiritual nakedness, we shed the layers of us so others can see the core of Christ in us.

{Confession: I wrote for more than 5 minutes.}