Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’
He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’
And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?’
The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’
Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’
The woman said, ‘The snake deceived me, and I ate.’ (Genesis 3:8-13)
We’re barely a few pages in to the Bible and here we find the first - but not the last - depiction of sin. Eve eats an apple. Big deal. But God told her not to. OK, perhaps that’s fair enough, but there's something else that the writer wants us to notice, something about the serpent.
It needn't have been an apple - the fruit itself is symbolic - and I think we can assume that the serpent wasn't merely interested in passing on a tip to his fellow garden-dwellers to help them have a more pleasant stay. No, the point to note is that the serpent wanted to bring a separation between man and God. And it worked. Nearly.
You get that bit about God strolling about the garden, quite likely that he'd bump into Adam and Eve? That all stopped after this incident, as the two young pups were no longer aloud to be within strolling distance. Why? Because God cannot have sin around. It's not that he doesn't like it, not that is makes him itchy and uncomfortable. He cannot have it around, and sin cannot be around him.
Any discussion of salvation needs to start with the reason why we need saving in the first place. And that reason is sin. We are all guilty, all falling short. At times we are fully aware of the way we are sinning, but there are other things we do - attitudes held, habits long-ingrained, disobedience overlooked - that we have been doing too long.
What is it that you do that puts up a barrier between you and God? Ask Him to show you. And then confess.