Intimacy

 Intimacy. A word that Webster's defines as "marked by very close association, contact, or familiarity."

We can certainly love our children, parents, and friends but true intimacy is usually reserved for spouses or significant others. And I'm not talking just physical intimacy. I mean emotional, you-know-everything-about-me intimacy. I believe that God planned it that way. In fact, I believe that the relationship between Adam and Eve was patterned after the one He had with them before sin entered the world and spoiled it all. And God wholeheartedly desires to reestablish that closeness or else He wouldn't have sent Jesus.

Listen to the way David described his desire for this intimacy in Psalm 63:

"O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands."

If you were to change the perspective and pretend you were saying these words to your spouse, the relationship would be unmistakable. Go ahead. Read it again, only this time substitute God for someone you are very close to.

Did you hear the intimacy? Most of us find it much easier to relate these emotions to an earthly partnership but what would happen if we transferred these feelings to our heavenly association? Jesus desperately wants to be our friend. He says so in John 15:15:

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."

I was recently comforting a crying baby and was holding him up close to my face so I could talk softly to him. He eventually calmed down and I was able to put him down to continue playing. As I moved him away from my face, I realized that his tears were still on my cheek. What a perfect picture of the intimacy our God wants with us. He wants us to be so close that when we cry, we leave our tears on His face.

Now that's a relationship I can long for.