Intimacy: it’s so bloody inconvenient. No wonder we tend to substitute sex.

There are many kinds of intimacy; few are discussed in our culture. Romantic intimacy rules the line of thought, even in Christian circles. Rarely do we speak about or foster psychological intimacy outside that paradigm.

And no wonder; it’s taxing. It’s much more difficult and less satisfying, or so we tend to assume.

In the culture, where we so often take our cues, it’s assumed that sexuality is a required component of intimacy. Even same-gender friendships may easily shade into the sexual, because hedonism has become our culture’s foundational assumption of human intimacy.

Let’s challenge that.

Wellsprings of Intimacy

You’ve searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I get up;
You understand my thoughts from far away.
You closely study my daily coming and going and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there’s a word on my tongue,
Look—you know it all.

That’s my horrible corruption of some beautiful verse, for a deliberate purpose. Mad love affair? Internet/webcam dating scenario?

Ha. Um, no. It describes the relationship of God and the believer. There’s no sexual component at all.

O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me.
Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up;
Thou dost understand my thought from afar.

Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And art intimately acquainted with all my ways.

Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, Thou dost know it all.

Psalm 139:1-4

Going With the Cultural Flow

Nowadays, we tend to get in touch with each other when we want something from one another, even if it’s simply to be entertained by another’s companionship. Friendships come and go, abandoned over petty personal non-negotiables when we tire of being asked to stretch and grow into the life and mind of another. We prize our feelings above our connections.

We do not do the work of healthy social intimacy. For many of us, that ability was lost a generation ago, or perhaps two, under the sweeping social changes that affected homes and families in the world wars, in the sixties, in the eighties. We hunger for something that’s missing, but don’t even know what it is or where to start looking for it.

Remembering What We Used to Know

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, people used to be more naturally connected. We knew when our neighbours got up for the day, especially if they were the perniciously rambunctious morning-person sort. We knew when they were at work in the garden or the fields. We knew when the smell of bread rose from their oven, or when their children cried. We knew what the expressions of their faces meant before they opened their mouths.

The opening verses of Psalm 139 had real, concrete meaning. We had a paradigm of the personal to which they related superlatively.

You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.

~Psalm 139:5-6

And if that was true long, long ago, in a close-knit agrarian society, how much more difficult is it to grasp today?

Noticing What We’ve Forgotten

We see our churches scattering after entertainment, just as friendships are about mutual entertainment. We see them split over building projects and “worship style” (whatever that’s supposed to mean—I don’t know because I can’t find it in Scripture). The consensus is that it’s somehow deeper to weep in transient joy or remorse over our song lyrics on Sunday than to offer genuine, if fallible, human understanding to pagans and atheists in the office on Monday.

Must we? Need we?

In keeping with RedRay’s comment at the Areopagus recently, the psalm says even more:

Where can I go from Thy Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Thy presence?
If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Thy hand will lead me,
And Thy right hand will lay hold of me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,”
Even the darkness is not dark to Thee,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to Thee.

~Psalm 139:7-12

There is no place where we’re alone in a hostile world, if we’re in Christ. We don’t need to return to an agrarian lifestyle to find that missing thing. It’s simply vital to believe and practice the Scripture’s position on the whole human spectrum of social relationships. We may sink as low as the darkness of death, and yet God’s Spirit is working on us even there. Even the darkness is not dark to Him.

My frame was not hidden from Thee,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.

~Psalm 139:15

Wherever we are, it has not occurred to the omniscient God to find us there. He has already been there from outside of time, waiting for us to arrive.

That’s intimacy.

Can human relationships ever live up to it? It’s too wonderful for us; we can’t attain to it. However, in Christ, we have options not available in the heart’s self-ruled isolation.

Rejecting Hedonism for Holiness

Where people borrow off each other’s entertainment value for their own amusement, we can offer laughter and encouragement out of a well of hope and peace that extends beyond the moment and even beyond this life.

Where misunderstandings occur, we can turn to the human operating manual and find scriptural solutions and the forbearance of Christ outlined in clear, practical principles.

And where feelings are hurt or offended, we have the overarching power of the cross: The reminder of what God suffered for you and me when we didn’t know what we did, and the ability to be honest with one another without blame or defensiveness, leaving one another’s flaws and failings under the blood of Christ—as well as our own.

Where we don’t know how to connect, when we feel stretched too far, we have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, transforming us and renewing our minds through attentive perusal of the Bible. The best option when we lack wisdom is to turn to Him who became wisdom to us, and who gives to all freely and without reproach. Prayer and Scripture fix more things than we can break.

Human intimacy, though never perfect, needn’t be torn between hedonism and invalidation. Broken hearts and minds can grow together into something not so quickly broken, after all. And in that, we have something precious to share with the world.

image credits:
kiss | eyehook.com |CC BY. 2.5
laughter http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh/ / CC BY 2.0
finch in hand http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanais/ / CC BY 2.0
some images adapted under license permissions.