Finding Intimacy in a Lonely World

  It's funny how the things we need the most in life are almost always the most difficult to obtain. Of all the most needy places to be; its the souls need for meaningful relationships that creates the most trials and confusion along life's journey. I am the least likely person to address the topic of intimacy in relationships as my own journey in relationships was extremely stunted and immature until I was challenged in nursing school to do something about it. The word intimacy in and of itself is layered with all sorts of misunderstanding and innuendo. In a sensual and sexually overloaded culture like America the word intimacy instantly conjures up images portrayed in the media of a strictly physical experience.


But as I've prayed and thought about this topic I awoke about 5 a.m. this morning with a few words in my heart that are helping me define intimacy in a new way. Here's my new definition for intimacy that came to me as I awakened: Intimacy is the ability to reveal who you are without regret.


Because of sin, brokenness, fear, abuse, disappointment and misunderstanding, we seldom let others see and know the real US. We constantly are hard at work trying to become someone we aren't. This takes tremendous energy and ensures we will be FOREVER lost on the journey for meaningful and intimate relationships. Intimacy demands many things but foremost is the ability to be true to oneself.


Every culture on earth has defined the essence of beauty in distinct ways that set up boundaries that define attraction, bonding, courtship and the movement toward intimacy. If we don't know who we really are or are not willing to express that we become shaped by externals and betray our inner selves. Confusion, mental illness, anxiety and depression about relationships all have at the root the most grievous of all sins: SELF BETRAYAL. If we have to become someone we are not, a cycle of personal schizophrenia begins that ends in NEVER BEING SATISFIED OR INTIMATE. For if you don't reveal who you really are... you can only live in a place of tormenting regret.


Relational satisfaction begins and ends with the ability to believe you are not a mistake. Your appearance, your personality, your dreams, your desires are all worthy in and of themselves. You are created to love and be loved not as an imitation of someone else but as yourself. To share intimacy with another begins with the ability to know some essential truths revealed by God about you:
1. You are not an accident
2. You are loved by God
3. Even in your broken places and failures, God still loves you


The interesting thing about intimacy is that God started it all. When we are connected in a relationship with the God of Love we have a foundation in which to grow and sustain healthy and satisfying relationships. But what happens when we have been poisoned by relational failures of our own or others making? Intimacy is disrupted, damaged and too often deleted from our lives. 
We run out of the garden that God has prepared for us to live. We substitute serial relationships of increasing toxicity and we hide from people who we really are. It's in a return to the place of trust in God that we can find satisfaction for this our DEEPEST and most fundamental need in life. You can be cut off from food or drink for a time... but when you are cut off from meaningful and intimate relationships, your death is very near... for death is not primarily a biological word.... it's relational. When we die... we are separated not from what we eat, drink or consume as much as we are separated from those with whom we are meant to share ourselves... without regret. Truly, life is all about relationships.

More to come;
Jim