Original Intimacy (Part 2)

For many years, I’ve simply viewed intimacy as merely a close friend. It’s a familiarity in which a person knows your secrets. He knows where you were born or maybe how you were born. . . the particular hospital, possible complications and so forth. He knows your weird idiosyncrasies and those things no one else would even want to know. He knows what you love and what you hate, what triggers a bad mood or habit. He knows how to boost your positive qualities and help minimize the bad ones. We could assume that this person is acquainted with all of your ways. Although, this person knows you very well, his knowledge of you pales in comparison to God’s knowledge of you. 

The person closest to you could never know you better than the one who watched you as you were formed in your mother’s womb, knowing your life before you’ve had a chance to live it. This infinite wisdom is too much for us to understand; being known so intricately and intimately. It’s both fearful and wonderful to fully accept a love and acceptance, we have no frame of reference for. 

It makes me think of Psalm 139:4, AMPC, in which David said, “. . .for You are fearful and wonderful.”

I remember a low point in my life in which I fell into a deep depression. I felt purposeless and worthless; I couldn’t figure out the point of my existing. During that time, God began to minister to me using Psalm 139. In Psalm 139:1-18, AMPC, David spoke about how God knows intimately his own thoughts and words, even the words he had yet to speak. 

O Lord, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me. You know my downsitting and my uprising; You understand my thought afar off. You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue [still unuttered], but, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have beset me and shut me in—behind and before, and You have laid Your hand upon me. Your [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high above me, I cannot reach it. Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me and the night shall be [the only] light about me, even the darkness hides nothing from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You. For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery]. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them. How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You.

Jesus says in Luke 12:6-7, AMPC, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And [yet] not one of them is forgotten or uncared for in the presence of God. But [even] the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be struck with fear or seized with alarm; you are of greater worth than many [flocks] of sparrows.”

We become truly whole when we cultivate an intimate relationship with God. To cultivate our intimacy with Him, we must fully accept the fact that we are infinitely, intentionally and intimately known by the Creator of the universe. He wants to establish this original intimate relationship with us throughout our years here on this earth.  

James 4:5-6, AMPC, states:

Or do you suppose that the Scripture is speaking to no purpose that says, The Spirit Whom He has caused to dwell in us yearns over us and He yearns for the Spirit [to be welcome] with a jealous love? But He gives us more and more grace (power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully). That is why He says, God sets Himself against the proud and haughty, but gives grace [continually] to the lowly (those who are humble enough to receive it).

Yielding ourselves to His “yearning” is humble. When we welcome God into our hearts, our lives, our situations. . .it satisfies Him. . . the way we humble ourselves, our whole lives, and make our problems bow to the awe and wonder of Him.

When we’re prideful, stubborn, and refusing to yield to Him, a good counselor or spiritual advisor can help us to see what we’re doing so we can again allow Him to begin to deal with us. . . as only He can. 

We need to understand that sometimes we need help and God will send people in our lives to help us. Can we truly continue in an intimate relationship with God, with all the distractions around us today? I believe we can, that is, when we’re conscious of Him, His care, His love, and all the different, mysterious ways in which He wants to teach and guide us through life.