Mystery of Intimacy

Intimacy with someone has a certain place for holding some things back; not telling the person all about you right away. I will explain.

God has created us in his image, and we all know that is very mysterious. Now that does have a lot to do with our finite minds trying to conceptualize an infinite God; so of course He will appear mysterious to us. But think of it this way; God could reveal to us everything about himself if he wanted to (and if we could handle it), but he does not. For this reason, my relationship with God is always new and exciting. It is this reality that fuels my intimacy with God as well. My intimacy with God consists of me attempting to know a mysterious God, and that means moving from discovery to new discovery, from surprise to surprise. My relationship with God does not grow stale unless I am discontent with the mystery. My relationship with God is intimate and exciting when I embrace the mystery and look forward to the next new discovery about the heart of God.

If God revealed everything about himself to me in one moment (and again supposing I could even handle that revelation) I would have nothing to desire more of; I would have no level of intimacy having known everything I needed to know. My relationship grows stale because the excitement of new discovery is lost.

Now, created in the image of God, our relationships with one another is very much the same. I think we are intended to live with a healthy level of mystery. Within every relationship we have there should be some varying degree of mystery and boundary. Even within the most intimate relationship humans can know, marriage, there should always be some level of mystery and boundary in exposure.

Many people would likely disagree with me, saying that marriage should be the one human relationship where you know everything about the other person. I think that is the very reason so many marriages grow stale so quickly. As human beings, our great need and desire is to know and be known. Many married couples are asked to "get it all out" as soon as possible so they may know each other and everything about each other, and we call that 'intimacy'.