I resisted this blog for several days after knowing what I would write about. Who wants to talk about intimacy in a public forum?
Yet Here I am to take a walk among the idols of my life
with Jesus. I don’t want to be here, but I made the brave and dangerous choice
to enter into His calling. Faith done right will feel like a juxtaposition. Ambivilance is inevitable in the mental arena of the daily disciple.
Once upon a time I knelt at the feet of my idol and anointed
perfume with complete humility and trust. I let my hair down and embraced my
identity as the Luke 7:37 woman of the Bible.
I was vulnerable, I was honest, I was courageous. But I
knelt in a posture of submission at the feet of a human being who I had
wrongfully put in place of Christ. I had made an idol. I sought intimacy with
an image-bearer instead of the Creator Himself.
I was bravely misled by my own choice to sin- I wanted to
make people my refuge and my redemption. I wanted to craft human friendships
into vessels of salvation. I entered into relationships with a desperation for healing
and wholeness that caused me to offer up my soul on the wrong altar.
Who is the Luke 7:37 woman? Read with me here-
Luke 7:37-50 (NLT)
37 When a
certain immoral woman from that city
heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with
expensive perfume. 38 Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping.
Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept
kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.
39 When the Pharisee who had
invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would
know what kind of woman is touching
him. She’s a sinner!”
40 Then Jesus answered his
thoughts. “Simon,” he said
to the Pharisee, “I have
something to say to you.”
“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.
41 Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned
money to two people—500 pieces of silver[a]to one and 50 pieces to the other. 42 But neither of
them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts.
Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”
43 Simon answered, “I suppose the
one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”
“That’s right,” Jesus
said. 44 Then he turned to the woman and said to
Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When
I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet,
but she has washed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair. 45 You didn’t
greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped
kissing my feet. 46 You neglected
the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.
47 “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have
been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven
little shows only little love.” 48 Then Jesus
said to the woman, “Your sins are
forgiven.”
49 The men at the table said
among themselves, “Who is this man, that he goes around forgiving sins?”
50 And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Who walks away from their most vulnerable moment with a
sense of deep inner peace? Well if the idol you knelt before was less than the complete
perfection of Jesus, you probably walked away with regrets.
If the idol you knelt before was Jesus Christ, then you walk
away not only at peace, but made strong in the very midst of your weak human fragility. You walk away whole and humble at the same time, ready for true intimacy with others.
The Luke 7:37 woman of the gospels was given true peace as a result of her true intimacy with the only One who deserved her devotion- she brought her whole sinful self and was therefore granted the right to love and be loved despite the many idols of her abuse.
Intimacy with human beings is complicated and complex, full
of potential pitfalls. It is directly tied to idolatry because of sin. This is because we are all made in the image of
God, walking around in a broken system, and so we are all potential gods and goddesses of idolatry in our own right. We tempt
one another with our great display of false perfection whenever we pretend that
sin does not impair our judgement for relational intimacy.
As I read Deuteronomy this week, I see this human struggle with
idolatry going on among God’s people from the beginning of the exodus from
Egypt.
Deuteronomy
4:15-31 (NLT)
A Warning against Idolatry
15 “But be
very careful! You did not see the Lord’s
form on the day he spoke to you from the heart of the fire at Mount Sinai. 16 So do not corrupt yourselves by making an idol
in any form—whether of a man or a woman, 17 an animal
on the ground, a bird in the sky, 18 a small animal that scurries
along the ground, or a fish in the deepest sea. 19 And when
you look up into the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars—all the forces of
heaven—don’t be seduced into worshiping them. The Lord your God gave them to all the peoples of the
earth. 20 Remember that the Lord rescued you from the iron-smelting furnace of
Egypt in order to make you his very own people and his special possession,
which is what you are today.
It is not your sin to be abused- to be helplessly mistreated by broken human beings. No, it is not your sin to be hurt. It is not your sin to become a victim of another’s neglect or cruelty. That is someone else's sin, not yours.
BUT it is your sin to allow this to distort our view of God. It is sin to allow humans to determine our worth in Jesus. It is a sin to project painful human failings onto the perfect God who loves you. The sins pushed upon us are not our fault- the pain which we allow to taint our trust in God, that is the piece of the suffering that you are responsible for. How have idols shaped your world view?
The idol of hate, vengance, fear, betrayal, unforgiveness, bitterness? Products of human brokenness. Not products of God's love. To cross these two is blasphemy. Of this I daily repent.
For this I must look back and take account for all the ways my idolatry of human opinion and praise marred my intimacy with Jesus.
BUT it is your sin to allow this to distort our view of God. It is sin to allow humans to determine our worth in Jesus. It is a sin to project painful human failings onto the perfect God who loves you. The sins pushed upon us are not our fault- the pain which we allow to taint our trust in God, that is the piece of the suffering that you are responsible for. How have idols shaped your world view?
The idol of hate, vengance, fear, betrayal, unforgiveness, bitterness? Products of human brokenness. Not products of God's love. To cross these two is blasphemy. Of this I daily repent.
For this I must look back and take account for all the ways my idolatry of human opinion and praise marred my intimacy with Jesus.
To mistrust God is a sin, because His love for you is
perfect. How have you allowed your idolatry of another human person become the
downfall of your relationship to Christ? If you fully trust God, can that
abusive relationship truly damages your core values?
How was my Luke 7:37 moment an act of sin? Because I allowed
the failure of a human friend to cause me to pull back away from the love of
Jesus in fear.
Who hurt me? People. Who did I hide from? God.
Oh, I also hid from people, too. Don’t get me wrong. But the
bitterness, the denial, the rejection of forgiveness, these were all a
mistrusting of God’s redemptive plan for my life. By rebelling against reconciliation,
I was revealing how much I truly mistrusted God’s ability to produce something
new in the aftermath of human failure, both mine and theirs. By choosing anger
and sometimes hate, I was choosing to take away the false idolatry of other
humans into my own hands.
Since other people could not be my god, then I would be my
own god and take shame and rage into my own hands. If I could not be intimate
in relationship with people, I would not be intimate in relationship with
anybody- this does include God, whether the victim of relational suffering realizes
it or not.
How we treat image-bearers is how we treat the one who actually
is the Image of Christ. Intimacy with people is only meant to be a reflection
of our intimacy with Him, not a replacement.
A voice interrupts here and says, am I still talking about this after so long? Yes, because working
out sanctification is a lifelong process that involves honesty, patience and the
guidance of the Spirit. And today, He guides me here to talk about intimacy.
Idolatry of other human beings is what gives sin access to
our hearts. Trusting human persons for the very real needs that only God should
be trusted with- that is where intimacy gets damaged.
Are we in fact bent but not broken, or are we whole and
healed in Jesus? I am currently wrestling with this myself. It seems to be a
both/and situation, a duality and a very Jewish way of thinking.
In my counseling sessions I am currently going through Dr.
Dan Allender’s companion workbook called The Wounded Heart. This week, we are
working on shame. I wanted to share a piece of it with my readers here-
Answer these questions with me, and see if we have some humanity
in common, you and I:
Q: Look back at the embarrassing moments and shameful truths
you’ve been writing about. Which of them involves letting people determine your
value and desirability? Which of them involves letting God determine those
things?
A: Every incident of shame in my life involves trusting in
people to take the place of God and expecting humans to validate my worth. I have
rarely trusted God to define who I am. Even now, right now in this moment. This
is why I am so often anxious.
Q: What signs do you see in your life that you have tried
(and maybe succeeded) to deaden your longing for deep, satisfying involvement
with others?
A: I let relationships fade away when I am hurt or let down.
I use neglect or avoidance to create a safe distance between myself and others
in order to avoid intimacy.
Q: What pain do you avoid by not longing for love?
A: When I keep a safe distance from intimacy, then I avoid the
pain of being hurt again, I avoid making another mistake, and I avoid falling
short of other’s expectations of me. When I hide, I can’t be wounded.
Q: Do you identify with the fear of abandonment? If so, what
do you do because of that fear?
A: Yes, based on past experiences I certainly fear
relational abandonment. I anticipate it and try to stay ahead of it at all
times. I avoid intimacy because the distance keeps me feeling safe.
Q: As you look back over your answers, think about who you
are trusting. To what or whom have you given the power to determine your desirability
and worth?
A: People. Always people. I have place myself at the feet of
human idols, ones who cannot provide the intimacy I need to be fulfilled,
healed and whole. I have looked to people to be my God, and when they let me
down I retreat into emotional isolation. People are my idols, and so I fear and
avoid depth of relationship because intimacy is a threat when it is based on the
broken human definition of love.
My friends, this is a tiny window into the thoughts I have
been wrestling with this past week. God is doing a work in me, revealing the roots
of my idolatry and communicating to my heart where true intimacy with Him could take me. Here has been my response to
Him:
“Dear Father- I am tired of doing relationships my way, but
I have no idea how to change. I sit here in the weeds of my mistakes and wait
to be rescued. All my self-help efforts have failed. I realize that on my own,
in my own stubborn pride to “do it myself”, all my attempts have amounted to a
state of helpless and useless fear of intimacy. You are the healer of my body
and the lover of my soul. I want to experience Your overwhelming presence every
day, even when there is pain and sorrow. I know that my brain needs to be
washed and reprogrammed so that I can experience true intimacy first with You,
so that I can experience it secondly with others. Help me to differentiate
between intimacy and efficiency- teach me to understand love from a healthy
foundation of trusting first in You. In Jesus name, AMEN.”
Yes, idolatry is the opposite of intimacy. This is why God makes is very clear in His Word- no idols. Okay, God, we agree. No idols.
But we have idols. They are people. They are everywhere.
God warns us, not because He is jealous (although He is
jealous for our faithful love) but because we are weak.
We are all weak. We are all bent by the weight of mishandled
intimacy. We are all human. We are all burdening one another with the weight of idolatry.
When I knelt at the feet of another human being, I place the weight of my salvation upon the back of a fellow struggler. To idolatrize the thoughts, opinions and assumptions of someone other than God is to sin against the Creator and all humanity.
Our idolatry is breaking us down. Our lack of healthy intimacy is ripping relationships apart. We need Jesus at the center, here and now.
When I knelt at the feet of another human being, I place the weight of my salvation upon the back of a fellow struggler. To idolatrize the thoughts, opinions and assumptions of someone other than God is to sin against the Creator and all humanity.
Our idolatry is breaking us down. Our lack of healthy intimacy is ripping relationships apart. We need Jesus at the center, here and now.
Certainly, I am not the only Luke 7:37 woman in this world-
there are more than a few of us out there. Only most don’t say so, because it
isn’t safe to do so.
Thankfully, God anticipates our tendency for making idols out of
each other, and so He leaves this promise that comes in the aftermath of our
sins:
28 There, in a foreign land,
you will worship idols made from wood and stone—gods that neither see nor hear
nor eat nor smell. 29 But from there you will
search again for the Lord your
God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.
30 “In the distant future,
when you are suffering all these things, you will finally return to the Lord your God and listen to what he
tells you. 31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he
will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn covenant he made with
your ancestors.
Some of us want deep relationships but don’t want to do the
daily work of building intimacy to get there. Some of us prefer to just hotwire
intimacy or surrender to the breakdown of relationship and simply ride it out
while it lasts. I have done both. Both are sin. Both require substantial
emotional healing.
It is time to exchange idolatry for intimacy. Stop idolizing people and start knowing them- but do not attempt this until you place your worship in a safe place: upon the feet of Jesus.
We must intentionally work on intimacy with God every day.
Our souls cannot be allowed to sleep. We must become emotionally invested in
knowing Christ each day.
Are you brave like the Luke 7:37 woman of the Scriptures? Can you present your WHOLE self to Jesus, worshiping at His feet?
So begin to reserve the depths of your heart for Him, because He
adores you deeply. Desire intimacy with Him so that you can experience it with others. Love the soul in another person in a way that reflects Jesus
instead of replacing Him.
Even though our sins are many, the love of Jesus in us is
even more. Intimacy with Him will always save us, and then we can continue to
move forward in peace, together.
With Love,
Rebecca
~*~
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