>A storm was brewing up there in the sky. It’s approach came threateningly closer as omnious dark clouds joined together across the sky. The wind sent gusty warnings and the trees trembled in anticipation. Any minute now, the heavens would burst open.

And there I was standing in the middle of the lawn with a dissembled outdoor canopy. Various pegs and poles of all shapes and sizes lay scattered around my feet and a tangled mess of rope rested in my hands. My eyes, like the clouds above me, were full to the brim and just waiting for the storm inside me to boil over.

For a few weeks I had been planning to have a stand at the local farmers market. But in order to sell baked goods outdoors in the middle of August, I would need a tent. And the one lying in pieces about me was all wrong. With characteristic unorganized impulsiveness, I never assumed the canopy which occupied a conspicuous corner of the garage would be anything but perfect and didn’t bother to test it out till the evening before the big day.

Plan fail. There was no way this tent was going to work for this market. And this would be the weekend to rain. Oh, that I would think through plans before acting on them!

After giving myself an animated scolding, I racked my brain for any solutions. The only thing I could think of was to strap an umbrella to my chair. Much help that would be in the event of a downpour. I would sooner give up the whole idea and let the refrigerator packed full of cookies, muffins, and cakes go to rot than be so ashamed.

Truthfully, I was acting pretty silly. All week, I had patted myself on the back for working out many details by my clever self. Now I was painfully embarrassed by my incompetence in providing what I so obviously needed. My hurt pride refused any help from well-intentioned family members, but to my surprise, my parents didn’t leave me to sort out my own sordid problems. Instead, while I blubbered and spewed over tent poles and despaired over dark clouds, they worked out a solution. What would I do without them? The next day, though rain pelted at times and the wind blew fiercely, my cookies, muffins, and I were kept safely dry under a brand new tent. Perfectly suited to its task.

The more I reflect (with chagrin) on my failure to provide for my need, and my stubbornness to ask for help, the more I realized that my problem was an old one. Like Adam and Eve kind of old. After their fall into sin, the first couple needed a covering for their new found shame. And just like me, their attempts to solving their problem on their own utterly failed.

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Genesis 3:7).

Fig leaves? Obviously insufficient protection. Adam and Eve needed a better covering. Even with their self-made clothes, they were still too ashamed to face God. But sometimes when we are so internally focused on being self-sufficient, our far-sighted vision is seriously impaired.

You and I need a covering for our sin and guilt. We need protection from temptation, security, and refuge. But the covering we need, called righteousness, we are incapable of providing. Yet, we try anyway by doing good works and calling them righteous, by trusting in our own abilities to sustain and save us. All it amount to is filthy rags, puny fig leaf coverings that leave us just as unprotected as before. We can’t provide the covering we need because what we really need is protection from ourselves and our own unrighteousness.

In Genesis 3:21, God provided a better covering for Adam and Eve than their pitiful fig leaf garments. He made them coats of skin from an animal sacrifice to keep them warm and to cloak their shame. “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.“

Isn’t that beautiful? God Himself provides what I need to be acceptable in His sight. God’s covering is a gift, a work of His hands. In order to put it on, I need to discard my own works-of-righteousness fig leaves and trust in His work. Rather than the self-righteous attitude of the Pharisee who builds his feeble fortress with self-praise, I need to see my heart, deceitful and weak as it is, fall on my face and cry “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” And His mercy comes, in the form of Christ’s sacrifice He covers my unrighteousness with the righteousness of the pure Lamb.

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with salvation; he has covered me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels” (Isaiah 61:10)

Who makes my covering? If I seek to build my own refuge, I am vulnerable, an easy target for temptation. “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). If the Lord covers my shame, my failures, and my sin, the robe of Christ’s righteousness is my shield against further attacks. “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance” (Psalm 32:7). Clothed in the purity of the Lord Jesus Christ, under the wings of the Almighty, there is refuge from the storms without and the tempest within.

I am learning that everything in my life happens for a reason. Every frustration is an opportunity to confess my helplessness to the Lord, and to turn to Him, the Sustainer of all things, to provide what I cannot, to Every reminder of my helplessness is an occasion to thank the Passover Lamb for His sacrifice. Every temptation brings a chance to trust in Christ’s strength. So if it through frustration, helplessness and temptation, I learn to lay aside my fig leaves and know more of Christ, my Strength and Covering, than I guess I am willing.

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:8,9).