Intimacy and Romance at the Concourse
So. Here I sit in the concourse at Chicago O’Hare. I have not written recently, and I’m a bit overwhelmed at the multitude of information that I have processed over that month. The most important thing would be that life does not stand still.
I have never been more confident of this thought than right now. I have been teaching students in the area of their spiritual integrity. My “jump off” point has been the discussion between the Modern’s commitment to knowing God and the Post-modern’s near obsession with experiencing Him. In a nutshell, I am driven to pursue both. I just don’t know if there is a first step.
I have been speaking over the years in regards to the believer’s confusion of two seemingly integrated issues: Those of romance and intimacy. To show how little we understand these words, I was speaking Wednesday night at a college in Missouri and used the word intimacy. A student gave that third grade, “I’m embarrassed by the word” snicker. There is yet another line between these words and my recent studies. Let me explain my process.
The blind man in John chapter nine experienced Christ long before He knew him. He had almost no answer for those who questioned him. In fact, all he infers is from his one experience. That is, that he was blind but he sees now. There are many believers who base their faith on their experiencing Christ in worship, healing, sense or prayer. I have encountered many who have no more depth than exactly that of the blind man. The problem is if we find contentment in that first experience. The first experience becomes all there is to our God. Some never get beyond the first experience. They have not grown farther than the door to faith. They never see past the first hill of the kingdom. I never have gotten over my first experience with Christ, but I did have to get past it in a sense. There is another danger that comes when we have become addicted to these experiences.
The second danger is whenever we expect new experiences to sustain our faith. In essence we have forced God to prove himself to us in a series of “feel the power” displays. Frankly, I am not priviledged with this kind of say in God’s affairs. I am saddened by those who serve a God they feel the need to control. My God is not a circus animal. He comes and goes as He wills. I wait for those moments, but I do not demand or even rely on them to sustain faith. Post-modern “storm-chasing” will leave us with a self serving and shallow dependence on God.
The flip side of the issue is what moderns have done with God. We have taken the desire to know God and have turned it into a lecture. We have studied God for the purpose of knowledge instead of love. Let me explain this concept briefly.
I look at my wife and study her. I memorize the sun dancing off of her hair. I fix my thoughts on her lips. I focus on her shoulders. It is because of, and in support of love.
I look at a dead frog in a tray. I prod it. Cut it open and examine it. I want to dissect it in order to understand function. I study both. I am close to only one. Without love their can be no intimacy.
God has searched me and known me. (Ps. 139:1) we used to know God by the sound of his footsteps. I believe that whereas moderns have studied the footprints like trackers, in order to ascertain where God is bound to go, post-moderns have stood at the place of God’s last footprint in their lives and ask him to step there again.
I have a challenge as a tweener to merge both aspect of spirituality into a cohesive faith. How cool is that? Knowledge proven by experience. Experience made deeper by knowledge. Intimacy and romance bound up in the pursuit of God.
Fantastically put.