“Intimacy with God!” I kept hearing this over the past couple of weeks and as I was spending time with the Father I was given more behind that statement. I thought to myself that, people struggle sometimes to be intimate with God because of some form of an intimacy issue. Some, hear the word intimacy and without deeper understanding of the word or a deeper connection to it, they associate intimacy with sex! But…the simple definition of intimacy is “close familiarity or friendship; closeness.”
Now to be fair… some, have already had this revelation that their disconnect of intimacy with God is because of their personal intimacy issues. My question is, have you looked at those issues? What are the trauma’s or struggles that you deal with that makes it hard for you to be intimate or have intimacy…and though most importantly with God, but with other people? Like many other’s story, my intimate deficiency started in my childhood. It stemmed from my experience of my parents relationship and the relationships that I had with them individually. My parents divorced when I was five years old-so more than likely their marriage had already started to decline by the time I reached five. Aside from being young and not having too many early memories, the ones I could remember, I never seen my parents share or show affection towards one another. In addition, my father was a merchant seamen so he rarely was home. There was no visual association of what closeness was supposed to look like between two people; especially that of man and woman.
Reflecting on the relationship with my father, and him leaving when I was five, after already not being consistently around, this created further distance between him and I and led to another source of disconnect for me and intimacy- the blueprint of the dynamics on how his and mine relationship would be. The very dynamics that later became the catalyst of a period of unhealthy dating habits for me. A story for another day, however, then there’s the relationship between my mother and I. God has definitely healed our relationship, but it wasn’t always the strongest or the easiest relationship to have. One day years ago her and I sat down for one of the most honest and transparent conversations we’ve had. I had reached a point in my life where I wanted to discuss some things with her and this conversation was my attempt to heal and mend some open wounds. In that conversation I revealed to her how I wished she was more nurturing when I was growing up. What I felt like I was lacking from her, again contributed to an intimacy issue.
So there you have two foundational relationships with the first two people I ever loved and I struggled with closeness from both of them. So how could I possibly know how to be intimate with anyone else? Let alone God? Well first I had to learn that intimacy didn’t just mean physical closeness-although I had this knowledge years before my relationship with God truly formed, I will say wanting to be closer to Him was the start of my journey to understanding intimacy and it’s true definition. But let me tell you… I took the scenic route to fully understanding this. In doing so, I did however, learn what intimacy was and what it was not. I learned it has nothing to do with people pleasing, over extending yourself, compromising your morals and standards or physically giving yourself to someone just to get or feel “close” to them. It is, however being your true authentic self with someone, feeling safe enough to be your imperfect self, free of judgement. It is pure love and affection for someone that is not physically based or centered around what either party can selfishly gain from one another.
All that being said- you may still question ” How can I have that with God?” No you may not be able to physically see God for the being that He is but He is omnipresent and omnipotent-meaning He is everywhere you are, able to do anything and all knowing. God created you so He knows you inside and out! He knows your strengths and weakness, He knows your flaws and faults and He has all of this knowledge about you without lessening the amount of love that He has for you. When you accept and acknowledge this about Him-it allows for intimacy to grow between you and Him. There’s nothing, in my opinion, more freeing than being able to tell all of your secrets to someone who technically already knows them. It’s a burden lifter because sometimes, you just have to talk about them. I share this to encourage you to go deeper with God and allow Him to redefine the meaning of intimacy in your life. It will change your life, I promise. Don’t trust my word, trust His! In the meantime go with God and grow with God- Be blessed.
~Danielle Vorece