Intimacy with God: Chapter Four

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"Thou breathedst and I drew in breath and pant for thee. I tasted and hunger and thirst. Thou touched me and I burned for thy peace" -St. Augustine

Some people say that God can't dwell where there is sin. Jesus showed us he does. He walks through the streets, filled with death and loneliness, and kneels beside the empty faces. God is with us, sin or not, always. God never leaves, never looks away, even when we wish he would. God never leaves for a moment. Psalm 139 in the Old Testament expresses the wonderful truth that God is here wherever we are, whatever we're doing, now, and always. The New Testament says something even greater: If you are a Christian, then God is not only here - God is in you, at this moment, and you are in God - closer than near.
Contrary to popular theology, we don't need to ask the Holy Spirit to come - the Holy of Holys is inside of you. This is much deeper than physical proximity; it is about intimacy. You are in God's soul, subject of God's thoughts and affection. Your heart resides at the core of God's being, and God's in yours. There is no closer a union possible, no deeper a love.
The question is then, why don't we experience this? Why don't we live in the constant overwhelming embrace of God's love for us? Why isn't our interaction with God an unbroken stream of communication? To some extent we may have tasted of this love - a short glimpse that left us burning for more, a moment, a season when we first believed, filled with joy and discovery and tears. But then it was gone, and we are left with the question: Where did our first love go?
There are three basic experiences of faith. The first is the early faith, largely dependent on emotions where most Christians begin. Everything is wonderful. God answers all your prayers. You're happy. We can live off of this milk for a time, sucking away, happily absorbed in our spiritual nursing. Until, it seems, the honeymoon ends: The feelings go, problems and insecurities set in, prayers go unanswered, and we find ourselves living from Sunday to Sunday, waiting to get our next spiritual fix, in order to recapture that feeling of closeness with God again. We become discouraged and someone tells us about the second experience of faith.
This is a faith based not on feelings, but on biblical truth. It is explained that emotions can't be trusted because they are only indirectly connected with reality. (For instance, we feel the emotion of fear, sorrow, or relief in a movie even though we are in no real danger and nothing has really happened). Emotions are additionally often mixed up with non-connected past experiences and fears, rather than on the current situation, (like having a traumatic experience with a dog as a child, and then being afraid of all dogs as an adult). We are therefore counseled by the second school to muster all our will, and decide to believe that we are close to God and have all we need, even though we still feel far away and unhappy.
There is a lot to be learned from this. We are a complicated blend of body, soul, and spirit. Many times when we are feeling far away from God emotionally, what we may in fact need is to get some exercise, or take a nap, or open a window and get some fresh air, or sunlight. You'd be surprised how much these things can change your prayer life. It is very important that we are in tune with ourselves, understanding what our body and our emotions are telling us, but this does not mean that reason is a substitute for feeling. We can not be content with an affectation, and although we admit that this second school of faith is more reasonable, we secretly long to return to the former days. The shallow solution to merely decide to believe is dissatisfying. We want the fire back again.
Most Christians stop here, somewhere in between milk and solid food - perpetually taking nourishment from a bottle that is filled with nutritious formula, but is at the same time is cold, plastic, and impersonal. There is though a third experience of faith. This third faith comes from trust. Like the second, it is based on unchanging biblical truth, and like the first the joy is there too. This third experience of faith - or simply put, a mature developed trust - is the focus of this chapter.

Maturity

David wrote, My heart is steadfast, like a weaned child in its mother's arms. A weaned child does not fearfully, desperately cling to the mother, sucking away for dear life. This is infancy. Instead, the child has grown in trust and confidence, and quietly rests in the arms of its mother. It does not strive or cling because it knows that it is safe and held. This weaning experience comes in our relationship with God when we really come to know the truth of God's love for us in our heart and can rest in it. The feelings are deeper than the former emotional ones which come and go, because they are rooted in God's love. This is what Paul is addressing when he says, "Until we all become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." and, "So they might have the full riches of complete understanding." In Ephesians 3:18 he prays that we would,

...grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ [for you], and to know [by experiencing it] this love which surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure [to the rim] of all the fullness of God.

Read that over again slowly. To live in that kind of love, to be in intimate interaction with Christ; this is the Christian maturity Paul talks about. It seems so beautiful, and yet so far away. How can we ever get that deep into God's love? I've got good news: you are there. Paul isn't praying that we could achieve or reach this state of intimacy, but that we could realize where we are. Just one verse before he says,

I pray that you being rooted and established in love [Past tense - it's already been done], may have power together with all the saints [not just the really spiritual ones] to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is [present tense] the love of Christ.

As Christians we have been rooted and established in God's love, and at this moment are in intimate union with Christ. You have, now, all the love of God directed towards you. As you read this, at this moment, you are in the presence of God. It is not a point to reach or attain, it is a realization, a discovery, an acceptance of a truth: You are loved, more than you can know.

REST

How we come to this restful knowledge with God is different than you might think. We are accustomed to rationalistic thought - We experience it, then we believe it. This is true in science but not always in relationships, and because of this misunderstanding we may be waiting for some big "experience" with God before we believe. But if we insist on experience first, we are insisting on a contradiction. It's like saying, "You'll have to show me you love me before I let you show me you love me." Trust is a process of learning, and the most important thing from our side is the openness of our heart to receive. It can seem like a lot of work, struggling and striving to remember the truth about us, squirming back and forth trying to find a comfortable position. This is the work of learning to rest. We do not need to strive to attain it, we need to stop kicking against it.
When Dana was growing up, there was a certain chair he loved - his father's chair. It was a beautiful chair, rich and dark, but Dana knew he was never allowed to sit in it. Years passed and Dana was spending the night at a friend's house. To his surprise, he saw the same chair! He pretended not to notice though, and went on with the evening. But that night, when the whole house was asleep, Dana stole down the stairs, as he had done at home, into the living room to sit in the chair. All the times he had been caught before raced across his mind. Gingerly, timidly, he sat down, ridged and watchful. But slowly, as he realized his father wouldn't come, he let himself relax. Sinking into the fabric, really sitting down for the first time in the plush chair, Dana slowly fell asleep. When he awoke the next morning, he found that someone had put a blanket over him.
Trust is learned. Our past experiences with trust - with learning to rest in the love of another - effect and shape all our subsequent relationships, including ours with God. Because of this we can learn a great deal about how to have an intimate relationship with God by examining and understanding our intimate relationships with eachother. The three experiences of faith mentioned earlier draw a close parallel to the development of love in romantic relationships. Both begin with intense feelings, the thrill when his knee accidentally touches hers, butterflies in the stomach, and long deep stares into each other's eyes. As the relationship matures, it is not based on romantic moments though, but on letting the other into your heart. When a romance is only a search to capture the right romantic moment - as dating can often be - it has no basis for growth. We can do the same thing spiritually by going from Sunday to Sunday attempting to get our next spiritual high.
Relationships can grow only when trust is developed through the experience of being loved. Emotions and experiences are vital to the building of this trust, but only in the context of love. When a romantic moment happens with someone who you know loves you, it is meaningful and wonderful, but it is a demonstration of the love not the basis for it. It is equally unhealthy to have a relationship based solely on emotions and the search for idealized intense "romantic moments", as it is to try to act like we don't need these times at all. When these moments are experienced within the context of trust, they enrich that trust, rather than merely providing an insecure neurotically-dependent escapist temporary "Sunday fix". Thus a mature relational trust is not a denial of our need for these special times, nor is it an insecure addiction to them, but rather a healthy integration of these times into our lives in the context of trust and love.
In an immature relationship when we feel insecure, we have a need for constant reassurance and affirmation. We need to talk, to sit close together, to hug and nestle. All relationships, including our relationship with God, begin in this sheltered emotional stage. If we are sitting on the couch close together, and one of us goes to get some coffee, the union is not broken. With a young insecure relationship it can feel like it though, because trust has not developed. Hugging is not intimacy and love, it is a expression of it. The love is constant, the hugging (hopefully) is not.
What it means then, to live constantly in the presence of God, is to live in the knowledge of God's continual love for us, at this moment, and at any moment - to be able to rest in this love. As in any relationship, there will be times of intense emotional closeness. These times come and go, but if the relationship is mature, we know that the love remains constant. Intimacy with God is not a constant stream of intense feeling, it is the closeness that comes from experiential trust - knowing we are loved and abiding in this knowledge. To some this realization comes all at once, in a flash. But to most the Holy Spirit brings us there gradually and in steps. It takes time. But with both, the way to begin is to start with now.
Ironically one must really learn to truly be present here and now, rather than being hung somewhere in limbo in the past or the future like a bird suspended over an ocean finding no place to land. We spend our time caught in the future obsessed with our worries, or reveling in some vivid emotional time with God we long to recapture in our past. We bide our time caught in the regrets of the past, or setting our heart so much on some future date that we are no longer present here, right now ("maybe after I finish this book then I'll be close to God"). We spend our time just about everywhere but right here. Even in good times we fail to be present, our insecure heart thinking "sure it's good now, but then it will go away and I'll be here alone again". So even when God is practically screaming in our face "I LOVE YOU!" we manage to be absent. One must cultivate the ability to live in the present moment with God - to really be here now.
Andrew Murray writes, "Each time your attention is free to occupy itself with the thoughts of Jesus, whether it be with time to think and pray or only for a few passing seconds, let your first thought be to say - now at this moment I do abide in Jesus." As we do this we can be sure that God is not inactive or dispassionate about us. All of God's love is directed towards you at this moment. It's not about working up a feeling, but about resting in where you are right now. So whenever you think of it, let your heart come to rest in the knowledge that you are right now, at this moment, in the presence of God and deeply loved. Don't worry if your concentration is bad, or your trust is weak. Don't waste time in regret that you did not come sooner, or that your faith is small. Don't worry if this message finds you unprepared. Come just as you are, begin right here, right now with this moment. Abide here in the present love of God. As time goes on trust will develop and mature, but the way to begin is right here, right now. So put the book down.

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