Swimming Naked

Swimming Naked

I haven’t actually swum naked. Not in the literal sense. I’m not opposed in theory to judicious skinny-dipping—but I have never been presented with what I would consider a “just right” opportunity to do so. (I imagine your relief, even as you read . . . and your vague concern about where this might be going.)

Not to worry.

I am thinking about grace. About how revealing it is. About how daunting it feels to shed my warm, comfortably arranged notions about goodness and knowledge and spiritual striving and works of compassion, and to stand shivering on the water’s edge, wondering if what I believe and nothing more is really enough.

The only ones who’ll know for sure are the ones who dare to dive in naked.

If I were to skinny-dip, I’d swim alone or choose my company awfully well. I’d choose my spot well too and time my plunge to the appropriate nanosecond. In other words, everything about the maneuver would be tightly managed and controlled.

Now that I think about it, maybe I have swum naked. I’m sure at least once or twice when I was small I must have been freed of my swimsuit or diaper and allowed to splash about in a plastic pool in nothing but my skin. But the older we get, the more we have to hide—right? What may have been charming at two is almost unthinkable today. We have too much grown-up pride to deliberately go uncovered for long.

But where my faith is concerned, pride is a luxury a woman in love cannot afford. Because the one who covers my sin and shame is the same one who calls me out, who bids me to shed my layers of self and striving and brave the waters with him. He is all I need.

The thought of such filled-up freedom makes me tingle down to my toes and yearn to feel—even more than safety—grace’s cool, clean water on my skin. Nothing less . . . and nothing more.

Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you?

Galatians 3:2, MSG