Developing Defense Mechanisms = The Fall

While I was feeding a little baby girl, her puréed green beans, she giggled at me green goo dripping down her chin. The green beans didn’t smell so great. Anything green is a little…yuck to me but her smile brought me such joy. I wondered why adults don’t experience joy like this, about something so trivial, and I happened to think about how children have yet to develop defense mechanisms.

Defense mechanisms are social boundaries, sometimes brick walls, designed to protect the individual who has them, from the evils of the world. But one of the main consequences of defense mechanisms is that sometimes they can alienate other people making relationships harder. This made me recall a class on Genesis held at my Church, San Marino Community Church. The speaker, Richard Lamb, suggested that Adam and Eve were children of about twelve years old when they ate from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil and experienced what’s called, the fall. One of the consequences, not to be mistaken as a punishment from God, was difficulty in relationships (Genesis 3:16. “…he [her husband] will rule over you”, the first mention of bullying in the Bible. God does not condone it merely states it will happen). It made me think maybe building of defense mechanisms, when we start to be ashamed and put space between ourselves and others is that fall. After Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree they felt shame for the first time as evidence by their realizing they were naked and covering themselves. You remember all the artwork where Adam Eve hide from God with leaves over their bodies. Could it be a metaphor for hiding ourselves behind those brick walls?

Later, the same day I feed the baby green beans, I was at a child’s baseball game where two little girls of about three years old told each other their names and a few minutes later one girl was sharing everything from her backpack with the other. Adults certainly aren’t like that. When we grow up we lose our innocence, fall from naiveté to understand there are evil people and snakes. Defense mechanisms become necessary. But there’s no need to just give in to evil. God made evil because he had a plan for it (Genesis 3:15; "he [Jesus] will crush your [Satan's] head"). He saw a greater power, Grace. Where defense mechanisms prevent us from being hurt, Grace allows us to heal when we let our guard down and are hurt.

Maybe to truly be a Child of God we have to let down our defense mechanisms to facilitate better relationships so we can experience what God’s desires for us really are.