Culturally Irrelevant

Someone once said a marriage without Jesus is like two ticks and no dog. It’s easy for a husband and wife to take their cues from each other and expect the other person to meet their needs by doing the right things. And if that’s the focus, it works in fits and spurts, but it eventually leads to a pretty exhausting and dry relationship, which is how I was told to do it. It’s works sometimes for Katy and me, as long as we’re getting pretty good sleep and the kids are behaving and work isn’t too demanding and the calendar is being nice… :)

We can’t meet each others needs, really. But as we’ve become more connected to Jesus individually, we’ve become more independent, more steady regardless of each others situation or what’s going on around us. The real bonus has been that as we’re more intimate with Jesus individually, the more energy and confidence and health we bring to the table when we’re together.

Experiencing this with Katy has taught me something else. I don’t have relationship problems with people. That’s really not the issue. Tension with a co-worker, pastor, friend, or family member isn’t the source of my problem. The source is my connection to Jesus. He’s the Vine and I’m a branch. When I’m connected to him intimately and constantly, life naturally flows to me from him and ultimately through me to others, regardless of what they say or do. But cut off that daily, intimate relationship with Jesus and I’ve got nothing for anyone, except myself, which is a frightening thought.

If I’ve seen anything that I have lacked as a man and that most men lack, it’s intimacy: the emotional and spiritual capacity and desire to be dangerously close to and vulnerable before God and other human beings for the sake of relationship. For the sake of loving and being loved. John Eldrige talks about the primal “wound” from our fathers, the wound with which we are all inflicted because of this fallen world and the broken relationships that have resulted. For us guys, that wound has kept us guarded, stoic, walled up, performance-minded, and a host of other things.

What about you? How’s your intimacy meter? How intimate are you with Jesus? How intimately have you known your spouse or your family today? Do you know what speaks to their deep desires and longings? Do you know what they’re really afraid of or hoping to see happen? When you see another believer, is it a handshake, a socially acceptable hug or a true embrace?

Our fear of intimacy, of getting hurt, causes us to create acceptable substitutes for true intimacy. I fear that we have so easily traded true Jesus-like intimacy with others, the kind that’s both passionate and pure, for connections that are more socially comfortable, more guarded. This is dangerous stuff, dangerous to the very intimacy Jesus died to give us and dangerous because it leads to far greater problems than the ones we’re trying so carefully to avoid.