Flashback Favorite: Real intimacy

Whether we admit it or not, we all desire to be intimately known and cared for.

Real intimacy
Originally posted on June 29, 2017

I really don’t like talking on the phone.  It’s too impersonal.  I don’t get to see the other person’s facial expressions and reactions, which makes communicating more difficult than it should be.  Whether I’m calling for work or personal reasons, I do my best to keep the conversation short and to the point. 

I like instant message, texting, and email even less.  I consider them to be even lower forms of communication.  I recognize that all three can be useful, but will only use them for short, brief transfers of information.  If it takes more than two sentences to type out my question or answer, I’d rather call the person.  At least I can hear their voice and quickly deal with issues and questions. However, if at all possible, I’ll go directly to them.  I’ve never understood the people at work who sit close to each other and communicate everything via IM.  There’s so much lost when we don’t speak face-to-face.

Beyond the efficiency of talking face-to-face, there’s something else happening in the moment that not even Skype or FaceTime can replicate.  There is a connectedness among those involved in the discussion…and together, the individuals dialoging face-to-face nearly create a separate persona as a byproduct of their conversation.  We have all felt this before, both as someone who is connecting with another person, or as someone who walks into a new room and can instantly tell the “mood” without anyone saying anything.

Our most intimate, intense conversations happen face-to-face.  The obvious example is the intimacy between lovers, but we also “get in someone’s face” when expressing our most intense displeasures.  The closer we get our face to another person’s face, the more our focus narrows and the stuff of the outside world is pushed aside.

Drawing on this powerful human-interaction experience, David writes the next stanza of Psalm 27.  Watch for his desire to seek God’s face, but also his concern if he is unable to do so:

Psalm 27:7-10
Lord, hear my voice when I call;
be gracious to me and answer me.
In Your behalf my heart says, “Seek My face.”
Lord, I will seek your face.
Do not hide Your face from me;
do not turn Your servant away in anger.
You have been my help;
do not leave me or abandon me, God of my salvation
Even if my father and mother abandon me,
the Lord cares for me.

Without God’s presence in his life, David would feel left behind and alone, with a huge, empty void inside.  In a word, he would feel abandoned.  David knows that if his own merits were the criteria for meeting with God, he doesn’t deserve to see God face-to-face.  However, the last sentence of this stanza is the key to understanding their relationship:

Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord cares for me.

Even if the people who are most expected to care and love him end up leaving him, David knows that being cared for by the Lord will sustain him.  This knowledge is what drives him to seek out God’s direct presence. 

The same intimate and intense relationship is available to each of us also.  Even if we’ve been abandoned by those closest to us, the Lord still cares for us.  Seek His face.  Seek his presence.  The closer we draw to Him, we’ll see what’s most important as the stuff of the outside world is pushed aside.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

She didn't get it

Jesus is making the Samaritan woman an incredible, no-strings-attached offer:

John 4:13-15
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.  But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again.  In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”
“Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

She wants Jesus’ living water for 2 reasons:
·       so she won’t get physically thirsty again
·       so she won’t have to come to the well to draw water

She didn’t get it.  She didn’t catch that Jesus’ metaphor was about giving her eternal life.  He wasn’t talking about physical thirst.  However, Jesus doesn’t get upset with her for not immediately grabbing on to spiritual truths.  Instead, He goes on to address her real thirst problem:

John 4:16-19
“Go call your husband,” He told her, “and come back here.”
“I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said.  “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.  What you have said is true.”
“Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet.”

I find this portion of their dialogue border-line hilarious: I see that you are a prophet.  What an understatement!  But let’s step into her sandals for a moment.  The re-occurring fault in her life was just called out by a complete stranger.  This part of her life is very likely why she comes to the well alone and at the hottest part of the day – to avoid the all-too-knowing glances of others in her community.  A relationship history that included five husbands plus another lover would raise eyebrows in our modern society…but in ancient times?  Practically unthinkable. 

Broken relationships are not a new, modern problem – she’d had many husbands and was now living with someone else (either that, or she has a relationship with someone else’s husband…).  And yet…don’t miss this…Jesus knows this about her and still offers her eternal life.

But why does Jesus tell her to go get her husband?  It seems kind of random in the story.  The request doesn’t appear to fit the conversation to this point.  However, we need to keep in mind the historical context:

From Dr. Constable’s online notes:
Jesus’ instruction to call her husband was proper, because if He was really going to give her something valuable, her husband needed to be present.  This was necessary to avoid any misunderstanding about the reason for the gift – especially in view of Samaritan/Jewish tensions…The woman wanted Jesus’ gift, so she admitted that she had “no husband.”  She probably hoped that He would now give it to her.  Instead, however, Jesus gave her a shocking revelation.  He knew about her marital relations intimately, but He related what He knew tastefully.  He commended her twice for telling the truth about her present marital status, but He also unmasked her past.

While she’s still focused on quenching her physical thirst, Jesus shows her that she’s been looking to the wrong wells for intimacy, and that His living water will satisfy her deepest need.  By asking for her husband, Jesus shifts gears to her personal relationship situation.  Jesus did not ignore her sin, but He gently pointed out that her life choices have still left her thirsty.  Her real thirst is for relationship (see Eve’s curse, Genesis 3:16) and she’s been trying to quench it through intimacy with multiple men.

Sometimes God tries to talk with us about spiritual, real-life things, and, like the Samaritan woman, we don’t get it.  We tend to stay focused on our physical needs.  But thankfully, He is patient with us.  Even though it may sting, God reveals how we’ve been trying to fill our deepest need with people or things that do not satisfy…but then He offers to fulfill that desire with Himself.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Real intimacy

I really don’t like talking on the phone.  It’s too impersonal.  I don’t get to see the other person’s facial expressions and reactions, which makes communicating more difficult than it should be.  Whether I’m calling for work or personal reasons, I do my best to keep the conversation short and to the point. 

I like instant message, texting, and email even less.  I consider them to be even lower forms of communication.  I recognize that all three can be useful, but will only use them for short, brief transfers of information.  If it takes more than two sentences to type out my question or answer, I’d rather call the person.  At least I can hear their voice and quickly deal with issues and questions. However, if at all possible, I’ll go directly to them.  I’ve never understood the people at work who sit close to each other and communicate everything via IM.  There’s so much lost when we don’t speak face-to-face.

Beyond the efficiency of talking face-to-face, there’s something else happening in the moment that not even Skype or FaceTime can replicate.  There is a connectedness among those involved in the discussion…and together, the individuals dialoging face-to-face nearly create a separate persona as a byproduct of their conversation.  We have all felt this before, both as someone who is connecting with another person, or as someone who walks into a new room and can instantly tell the “mood” without anyone saying anything.

Our most intimate, intense conversations happen face-to-face.  The obvious example is the intimacy between lovers, but we also “get in someone’s face” when expressing our most intense displeasures.  The closer we get our face to another person’s face, the more our focus narrows and the stuff of the outside world is pushed aside.

Drawing on this powerful human-interaction experience, David writes the next stanza of Psalm 27.  Watch for his desire to seek God’s face, but also his concern if he is unable to do so:

Psalm 27:7-10
Lord, hear my voice when I call;
be gracious to me and answer me.
In Your behalf my heart says, “Seek My face.”
Lord, I will seek your face.
Do not hide Your face from me;
do not turn Your servant away in anger.
You have been my help;
do not leave me or abandon me, God of my salvation
Even if my father and mother abandon me,
the Lord cares for me.

Without God’s presence in his life, David would feel left behind and alone, with a huge, empty void inside.  In a word, he would feel abandoned.  David knows that if his own merits were the criteria for meeting with God, he doesn’t deserve to see God face-to-face.  However, the last sentence of this stanza is the key to understanding their relationship:

Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord cares for me.

Even if the people who are most expected to care and love him end up leaving him, David knows that being cared for by the Lord will sustain him.  This knowledge is what drives him to seek out God’s direct presence. 

The same intimate and intense relationship is available to each of us also.  Even if we’ve been abandoned by those closest to us, the Lord still cares for us.  Seek His face.  Seek his presence.  The closer we draw to Him, we’ll see what’s most important as the stuff of the outside world is pushed aside.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Set apart by truth

As Jesus continued to petition the Father during His ‘High Priestly Prayer’, the disciples discovered a central truth of how they were going to maintain their oneness with the Father.

John 17:16-19 They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.
As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
I sanctify Myself for them, so they also may be sanctified by the truth.

Because they believed in Jesus for eternal life, the disciples were no longer of the world, meaning that they no longer represented the world’s values and the world’s values no longer represented them.  They were, in fact, separated out from the world.  From this, Jesus requests that the Father would sanctify them.  To be sanctified means to be set apart for a Holy purpose.  Jesus will be sending His disciples into the world, into a realm that no longer represents them.  In this way, their mission will be just like Jesus’ mission – enter into hostile territory in order to proclaim the good news of salvation and Christ’s offer of eternal life for all who believe.

However, the part that blows me away is verse 17 – Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.

Jesus asks the Father to set apart the disciples for a Holy purpose, and He requests that the Father accomplishes the sanctification by the truth…which sounds all well and good, and would be a wonderful request if Jesus had stopped His sentence right there.  But He didn’t stop…instead, in His request to the Father, Jesus revealed one of the most rock-bottom, foundational, and practical realities for anyone who follows Jesus:

Your word is truth.

It is only in the Father’s statements that the truth of life is found.  The Father proclaims truth, and it is by that truth the disciples will be set apart.  As the Father’s truth enters their lives and they become more like Jesus, they will be made ready to participate in God’s Holy purposes – both in this life and in eternity.

And it gets better as Jesus continues…

John 20-21 I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in Me through their message.
May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You.
May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me.

Jesus prayed SPECIFICALLY for us.  We are the ones who have believed in Jesus through the disciples’ message.  Jesus asked the Father that we would also experience the same intimately connected “oneness” with the Father that Jesus was praying for His disciples.

At the end of verse 21, Jesus revels our purpose in being so intimately connected with each other and with God: so the world may believe You sent Me.  Just like the disciples, we too are set apart, for God’s Holy purpose of showing the world that the Father sent Jesus to be our Savior and that eternal life is available for those who trust in Him for it.

Our “oneness” with the Father is what spreads this message.  Being one with the Father, as Jesus was, will sanctify us…and our relationship with the Father is maintained by focusing on the truth of God’s word. 

God has spoken His word to humanity in two distinct ways – through the Bible (which we commonly refer to as ‘God’s Word’) and through His son Jesus (who is referred to as ‘the Word’). 

If we are going to participate in God’s Holy purpose and share the good news in the world, then our next step is both straightforward and practical – we must spend time in God’s Word and with Jesus, the Word.

Keep Pressing,
Ken