Divine Intimacy

For as long as I can remember, the deepest desire of my heart has been to belong. Even as a little girl, I wanted to be known and loved intimately by someone who would never change the way they feel about me no matter who I am and what I’ve done. This longing to belong is a core part of each of our hearts as human beings. We were made to love and be loved. We go to all sorts of places to find this love and sense of belonging that we crave so deeply, working relentlessly to earn other people’s love and approval.

As a child, I developed an addiction to pleasing people, trying to find a way to please everyone all at once so that people would love and accept me the way that I needed. I became painfully shy and overwhelmed with social anxiety as I obsessed over each interaction that I had with other people. I became so paralyzed with fear that I would say or do something that someone else would not like that I began to avoid saying anything at all. I began to avoid talking to my classmates and going to any events or places where I might have to meet new people or interact with anyone other than my close friends and family members. I withdrew from my own life into a fantasy world where I could become whoever I wanted and interact with people that always loved and accepted me.

However, even though hiding in my daydreams made me feel safe, it was also lonely and made me feel even worse about myself than I had before. I started comparing myself to my friends and classmates and wishing I could be anyone other than myself. I hated the shy, awkward girl that I was and was sure that all the people who loved me only felt that way about me because they were really patient, kind people. I believed that my friends only spent time with me because they felt bad for me. No matter what I did, my longing to truly belong could not be satisfied by the people around me. People pleasing is a dead end road. It has become a vicious loop of obsessing over other people’s opinions and trying to fit myself into a thousand different boxes to become the person that I thought would be worthy of love and acceptance. 

Recently, God has convicted me of people pleasing, showing me that it has become an idol that has taken His place in my heart. It may not be a golden statue of another god, but I have bowed down and worshipped it time and time again. My longing to belong and to be loved in itself is not bad. In fact, God placed that desire in my heart when He created me in His image. However, it has become corrupted by the fall leading me to go to the wrong places for it to be filled. In my brokenness, I turn to the world around me to fill a need that only God was meant to fill and it leaves me even more broken and empty than I was before. We want to be fully and deeply known and loved, but we are so afraid that if we are truly ourselves, no one will be able to love us and so we try to become someone else. We hide behind a mask of a person that we think other people want to see. We work endlessly to be good enough to be loved and to become a person that others want, but what would happen if we let go of the mask and stopped hiding? Would anyone love us? Could anyone accept us as the broken, imperfect, unique people that we are? 

King David was a person who found this type of intimacy with the God of the universe. He let go of his mask and stopped pretending to be someone that he was not and discovered what it truly means to be fully and completely known and loved by God. He wrote, “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.”(1) We cannot hide who we truly are from God because He already knows everything about us. However, this does not stop us from trying. David goes on to write:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body

And knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! 

Your workmanship is marvelous-how will I know it. 

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, 

As I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out 

Before a single day had passed.(2)

David understood that God knows everything about us and loves us exactly the way we are. He created us with intention and purpose. We are “wonderfully complex” and beautiful. We are His art work. He created each of us the way we are for a reason and He doesn’t make mistakes. King David also wrote, “He rescued me because he delights in me.”(3) God does not save us because He just feels bad for us. He doesn’t do it begrudgingly because He knows that it's the right thing to do even though He really can barely stand to be around us. He cares deeply for us and our well being and loves spending time with us. He longs for us to let Him draw us close to His heart so He can have an intimate, meaningful relationship with us. When we let go of trying desperately to please others and find love and belonging in the world around us and instead finally turn to the only one who can truly know and love us the way that we so desperately desire, we will find rest from our endless search for belonging. Jesus said, “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”(4) In Christ, we can find rest from the vicious cycle of searching and striving to find belonging and love in this world. Only He can satisfy our need for intimacy. 

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ‘Abba, Father.”(5) When we put our faith in Jesus, we become sons and daughters of God. The title “Abba” that Paul uses in this verse is a Hebrew word for father. It is an intimate term that a small child uses for their father like “papa” or “daddy.” God wants an intimate relationship with us like small children have with an attentive, loving father. He wants us to come to Him with the trust and uninhibited affection of children who know that we are completely known and deeply loved by Him just as we are.

Steffany Gretzinger put it well in her song “Out of Hiding” when she wrote, “I tore the veil for you to come close.”(6) When Jesus died on the cross, the veil separating the inner most part of the temple where the Spirit of God dwelled from the rest of the temple was torn in two, signifying that his work on the cross had broken the barrier between us and God. Before the cross, no one but a priest could enter into that part of the temple and even then only one priest was able to enter once a year. Now, everyone is welcomed into God’s presence. He wants us to come close to Him and stop trying to hold Him at a distance. We could never earn His love because He already loves us more than we could even imagine. 

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about The C.A.N Sisters’ Ministry, leave a comment below, check out my website, or email me at cansistersministry@gmail.com. 

Footnotes:

(1) Psalm 139:1 (New Living Translation).

(2) Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT).

(3) 2 Samuel 22:20a (NLT). 

(4) Matthew 11:28 (New International Version). 

(5) Galatians 4:6 (NIV).

(6) Steffany Gretzinger, “Out of Hiding (Father’s Song),” Track 3 on The Undoing. Bethel Music, 2014, Spotify.