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"There
is an intimacy with God, but it's like any other
intimacy.... In
marriage you don't feel intimate most of the time.
Nor with a friend. Intimacy isn't primarily a
mystical emotion. It's a way of life, a life of
openness, honesty, a certain transparency."
(Eugene
Peterson)
Intimacy with God
We
often encourage people to have "a personal
relationship with God." At churches, camps and
cafes we ask each other, "How's your walk with the
Lord?" We urge each other to "go deeper" with Him.
It's all fair fodder - unless our view of
intimacy is looking for some kind of mystical
emotionalism.
Some
believers, by virtue of temperament, will be very
"chatty" with the Lord. They're "chatty" with
everyone. Others, because of personality, will
feel deep attachments. They're wired for it. Still
others, as a result of their childhood
nurture, will more readily become dependent on
Christ, "needing Him" every moment of the
day.
These
experiences are all fine and appropriate. We ought
not diminish them for a moment.
But
it may be helpful to acknowledge the influence of
temperament and nurture, and accept that intimacy
legitimately takes many different forms.
Just as no two healthy marriages are identical, so
there is no single template for our relationship
with
God.
When we insist
that intimacy with God should look the same
for everyone, we speak from ignorance not
insight.
Perhaps
this explains why Jesus was (deliberately?) vague
about what "intimacy with the Father" looks like.
Yes, it obviously involves talking with Him
and listening to Him. But how much? Yes, it
unquestionably involves the emotions. But which
ones and how
often?
As
Eugene Peterson suggests in the opening quote this
week, intimacy is primarily a way of life. Rapture
and ecstacy may come from time to time, but we
don't live there constantly ... not in friendships
with others or God.
The
faith of the greatest saints of the past (see
Hebrews 11) produced lifestyles of obedience. Noah
had a defining couple of ecstatic moments when the
voice of the Lord broke through to him, but
otherwise he just went about building a boat - as
he had been instructed - for decades! Abraham
heard God speak a time or two, but seems to have
spent the vast majority of his life breeding stock
and living with integrity before God. We could
talk about Moses in similar ways - decades of
steady
obedience.
Some
believers today might wonder if Noah, Abraham,
Moses, and others had an "intimate" walk with
God. Of course they did. But the Bible doesn't
seem to exalt or encourage the kind of mystical
aspirations we secretly harbour. In fact, the
Apostle Paul openly opposed the false apostles who
foisted such expectations on others (see 2
Corinthians
10-12).
Yes,
God spoke clearly at times, but the walk He
enjoyed with David or Amos or Nehemiah was, for
the most part, the intimacy of simple
companionship in the
ordinary.
Spiritual
formation, Christian spirituality, or
intimacy with God may ultimately be, as Peterson
titled his 1980 book, "a long obedience in the
same direction." This understanding lacks the
snappy pizzazz and alluring promise of rapture and
ecstacy, but it may just release some folk from
the pressure of the well-intentioned among
us.
In HOPE
-
David | 
