Take away lust add intimacy

We have confused unbridled passion for love. Perhaps it is no wonder as you can scarcely go to a movie without seeing this one and that one jumping into bed together at the drop of a hat. And there is a subtle lie behind it all, and that is that this is normal and natural and good and right and healthy. In the meantime we fall out of our relationships as easily as we fall into bed. Why should this surprise us? When we are told over and over there is no difference between us and the lower animals, and when in response we behave like them, then surely it is no wonder our relationships are like theirs. I mean how long do dogs stay married?

We tell each other “I love you,” but what do we mean? Is there more to love than wanting to jump into bed with each other? Do we even know what love is? Here is one description of it: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

We confuse love with lust when we say “Because I love you I want your body.” We confuse love with passion when we say “I love you but I have needs.” We confuse love with lust when we promise to remain faithful only as long as we both shall love. We embrace true love when we say and mean that if and when I no longer feel love, I will choose to love, and I will love you.

We start to embrace true love when before we jump into bed we determine that if and when we do, we will commit to each other to push through the inevitable relationship pain that comes at the end of the honeymoon. When we do this, and when we follow through to breakthrough, we come through to the kind of relationship that we were intended to have with God and with each other, we start to come into true intimacy.

Well if he (she) would love me like that, then I would respond the same way. Maybe, but it's hard when all you get (give) is “I, me, my.” We need help to get started (I do), and when we get started we need help to continue (I do). And that help is freely available, but we have to stop putting up walls against it (more than I do).

Someone described intimacy as “into me see.” It may sound scarey to let another do that, but we will not experience true intimacy while we hide who we are from each other, behind the high and defensive walls. The walls may keep some of the bad out, but they also keep the good out, and they keep our pain and baggage and fear intact inside the walls.

And we get stuck in responding the same old, same old way. We know that the World is a scarey place and, when we have been hurt, we can be reluctant to let anyone in again. What we need is a safe place to start, and the safest place is God. Not necessarily the God you encountered in Church nor in those who call themselves Christian but do not exhibit Christ like qualities. And this has been and is me at times, but Christ is the one to whom I turned, and He is the One who has been faithful and enabled me to love again. Indeed the Scriptures tell us “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NIV). Our ability to love at all comes because there is one who initiated love, and that is God. He is the source, the essence, the motivation, the first and the last, the author and finisher of love. True intimacy starts when we stop fighting Him, turn to Him in repentance, receive His forgiveness and grace and strength, His hope and joy, His peace and love. God so loved the World that He gave His only Son that whosoever in this undeserving world should turn to Him in this way should find all of these things in Him. It starts with intimacy with Him, it continues with intimacy with Him and it will end with intimacy with Him. This is the essence of eternal life to know the Father the only true God, and Jesus Christ the Son He sent (John 17:3).

If you want to pray: Father, please reveal Your Son in me. Show me the walls that I have erected to keep You out, and what I need to do to let You in. Give me what I need to love and live again. Help me to be the person You call me to be as I draw near to You, and become more like You in Your extravagant healing love. Flow through me, in Christ's name Amen.