Monday, July 26, 2010

Intimacy

I heard the most amazing definition of intimacy once.

Intimacy = Into me see.

Wow. That's potent - and profound.

I remember reading recently the story of the sheep and the goats. You know the one, where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats on the day of judgment and says to the ones on His right, "Come, blessed of My Father...for I was hungry and you fed Me, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, naked, and you clothed Me..." and to the ones on His left He says, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire..." And then He proceeds to say that they never fed Him, etc. (Matthew 25:31-46). In a similar passage (Matthew 7:20-22), He says, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom." He describes people who think they're doing His will, who will be surprised on the day of judgment. As He sends these people away into everlasting punishment, He says, "I never knew you."

"I never knew you..."??? That's a pretty awful indictment - and it appears to fly in the face of everything we were ever taught about the nature of God. God is omniscient - He knows everything, about everyone. What IS this, anyway?

The first time the verb "to know" appears in the Bible, it's extremely personal. "Adam knew his wife Eve - and she conceived..." You don't have to be an OB-GYN to understand what is meant by this. It's a very intimate picture. Let's put that into context, and all becomes clear. Adam wants to "know" his wife. In order for that knowing to take place, Eve has to open herself to him, to allow him to be intimate with her.

It literally DOES take two!

So I'm fast-forwarding to Jesus' story. "I never knew you" means "You never allowed Me to be intimate with you, to know you, to be one with you."

In other words, He is saying to them, "There was always this wall between you and Me. You never really 'got' Me. You never opened yourself, your innermost being, to Me. You never allowed yourself to share your deepest heart with Me - or to let Me share My deepest heart with you. If you had, your life would have been so very different, filled with joy and love which overflowed back to Me and spilled over into those who were lost, hurting, anchorless. You WORKED for Me and did great deeds in My name. But you never let Me in to the deepest part of you. I wanted so badly, so desperately, to know you intimately. But you wouldn't have it. It was always about you - never about Me - never about us."

How very sad!! I can imagine Jesus weeping as He says this to them, just as He wept over Jerusalem before His crucifixion week. The longing of His heart, to gather His people under His wings as a hen gathers her chicks (another picture of intimacy by the way) is spurned. What agony that is for Him when He knows that there could be so much more!!

The knowing He so desperately desires is a face-to-face, eye-to-eye knowing. It's not a duty-bound, ritualistic show of our own piety. It's intimacy. Uncluttered by "should" and "supposed to" and "got to." Just an individual, heart-to-heart relationship with the Lover of our souls. Nothing more complicated than that.

If the Holy Spirit is tugging at your heart - as He is at mine - I suggest you join me in a simple, heartfelt prayer.

"Oh, God - into me see."

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