Last Thursday, during our weekly prayer meeting, I heard, “They call my name, but I do not know them.”
When I heard this, I was alarmed and sad; it suddenly dawned on me how much we seek God for all things we require and want, but we do not seek God to have an intimate relationship with him.
Intimacy is the experience of knowing and being known by another person. We frequently use spatial language when describing this experience.
An intimate friend is someone we feel very close to; they know us deeply. If something damages the intimacy with our friends, they feel distant from us. Or a person who doesn’t know us intimately knows us at an acquaintance level.
What makes us feel intimate with another person? While there are many ingredients to intimacy, and each personal relationship we have has a different recipe, common to all of them is trust. We cannot be intimate with a person we don’t trust.
Trust is at the heart of intimacy. The more we trust someone, the closer we let them get to us. The degree to which trust is compromised in a relationship is to which intimacy evaporates.
This is as true in our relationship with God as in our relationships with other human beings. Our experience of God’s nearness or distance is not a description of his actual proximity to us but of our experience of intimacy with him. Scripture shows us that God is intimate with those who trust him.
The more we trust God, the more intimately we come to know him. A felt distance from God is often due to a trust disruption, such as a sin or disappointment.
One common mistake is thinking that nearness to God can be achieved through biblical knowledge acquired. Of course, to intimately know God, we must know crucial things about God. Jesus said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32), and he pointed out that many worships what they do not know (John 4:22).
But never in the history of the Christian church have we had so much theological knowledge available to so many people as it is today. The church today enjoys perhaps a tremendous amount of this abundance. We have many Bible translations, good books, insightful articles, recorded sermons, interviews, movies, documentaries, music, and more. It is suitable for us to be very thankful.
But the world today is not full of Enochs or saints who walk with God in a profoundly intimate way (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5).
Why? Because knowledge is not synonymous with trust. That’s why Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day, some of who possessed a comprehensive understanding of Scripture.
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39–40).
Biblical knowledge is far better than gold when it fuels our trust in God because it fuels our intimacy with God (Psalm 19:10). But when biblical knowledge replaces our faith in God, it only fuels our pride (1 Corinthians 8:1).
God wants intimacy with you. Christ has worked hard on the cross to make it possible. All he requires is that you believe in him (John 14:1). He wants you to trust him with all your heart (Proverbs 3:5).
This means his invitation to you to enjoy intimacy with him is the providences in your life that are testing your faith more than anything else. What you must trust God most right now is where he means for you to draw closer to him.
It is likely an invitation that your flesh wants to decline. But as you read your Bible, do not the great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) all agree with James and Peter that the greatest testing of faith is the path to the greatest joy (James 1:2–4; 1 Peter 1:8–9).
And do they not agree with Paul that it is not worth comparing to the joy of knowing Christ and the coming glory (Philippians 3:8; Romans 8:18).
Intimacy with God often occurs in the places where we must trust him most. Heaven on earth is the inexpressible joy and the peace that surpasses understanding from trusting God wholly (Philippians 4:6–7). As the old hymn writer said, “they who trust him wholly find him wholly true.”
What are your next steps? How do you intend to develop a more intimate relationship with God?
Encourage someone today and share.
*SeekYeFirstJesus*
Written by Ama Ghana
@seekyefirstjesus
Ama Ghana is a Servant of God and the Founder of Seek Ye First Christian blog.
She blogs here
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