I have been pondering over certain things in recent times and one that tops the list for me is the fact that man has remained the same from the time of Adam in the garden till now. You see, when you take milk from goats and cows which is dairy, and process it into items like butter, cheese, yogurt, cream and other products, they are all called dairy products.

When Adam and Eve found that they had sinned, they sewed themselves a covering made of fig leaves and that is exactly what we have continued to do till this day.

Our attempt to cover up our errors,  or to justify them when we find ourselves in a bind because of our wrong choices, mistakes, or even deliberate actions or reactions to things we feel have gone contrary to our plans, leave us still naked to the enemy who stole our covering the moment we agreed with him to go rogue, leaves us with superficial relationships with one another and  separated from God. We may have modified our methods, and material used for covering, yet they are all termed fig leaves.

Fig leaves in friendship – Part One

A friend is supposed to be a companion, someone with whom you share a mutual feeling of fondness, trust, reliability. Someone who is there for you, got your back and you are rest-assured with. Everybody needs and should be a friend like that to someone other than a spouse or family member. Yet, we all know that this type of relationship requires hard work – also known as; commitment, determination, honesty and sacrifice.

Well, most times, we want the feeling and reward of friendship without the hard work, so we have come up with what we see today, superficiality! We resist anyone or thing that encourages us to be real with ourselves, or deal with our own issues and have stitched together all sorts of fig leaves to cover them and bit by bit, who we really are is being swallowed our desire to fix everyone else but ourselves. Wait a minute, we have just stumbled on a new agenda! The sad thing is that we are beginning to believe that this new person is who we should be, so we commit to this image and that is who the world sees. We are back in the game!

Committing to any course that gives you relevance at the expense of your real self, is a contradiction and a dis-service to one’s self. If you cannot be true to yourself, how can you be a loyal friend? If you are a dis-honest person, why do you seek honest people? Tell you why. Even though over time, we become good at stitching things together to cover ourselves, who we really are wants out and refuses to be buried beneath the fig leaves of anger, malice, bitterness, manipulation, competition, betrayal, blaming and control. 

Take off the fig leaves and let yourself heal! Fig leaves have this adrenalin that carry you for a while, then it begins to wear out as leaves wither once they are cut off the tree. This keeps you needing to cut more and more fig leaves when you can be free. Take off the fig leaves and confront who you really are. There are some fences you will need to go mend, some bridges to pull down and new ones rebuild. Staying lost because you took a wrong turn that led to several other wrong turns does not get you home. Take off the fig leaves, wash yourself and try again!