Living Courageously: You Can Face Anything, Just Do It Afraid (18 page)

God can get angry, but He is not an “angry God.” He is good, full of mercy and compassion, quick to forgive and slow to anger. God’s anger is toward sin, not sinners. The Bible teaches us that Jesus is a friend of sinners. His goodness draws men to repentance. He hates sin because He knows that it produces death in our lives. It steals every good thing that God has in mind for us. God works to draw us into a love relationship with Him, away from sin and misery, and He doesn’t do it by heaping tragedy and loss on us as payment for our past mistakes.

Millions of people suffer because of the deception that God is mad at them, just as I did, so last year I wrote an entire book on
the topic and I recommend it for your further education on this subject. It is simply titled
Perfect Love.

Jesus took all the punishment and judgment we deserve from God, and we are free to come to Him and enter into an intimate relationship of love and acceptance. Just as the little boy’s grandmother was probably waiting to give him a big hug, God is waiting to give us one, if we will just stop letting the devil blackmail us.

God is focused on you and His love for you, not on what you have done wrong in your life. Instead of you focusing on what you have done wrong and the punishment you are afraid of getting, focus on God’s love and mercy. Run to Father God and get your hug! Focus on the fact that He is good at all times, and continue believing in His promises no matter what your circumstances look like. Things are always changing, but God never changes. He loves us forever and will never leave us nor forsake us.

Intimacy is extreme closeness. Through Jesus we are offered a close, intimate relationship with God. Many are afraid of intimacy with people and also with God. But the truth is that you can be as close to God as you want to be. He is waiting for you, and there are no limitations on the wonderful relationship you can have with Him if you truly desire it. You can also have close, intimate relationships with people; but in saying that, I must also tell you that vulnerability is required, and you cannot have one without the other.

We often forfeit intimacy because we don’t want to take a chance on being hurt. We are afraid that if people really get to know us intimately, they may not like us, or be shocked by the truth they see. I heard that “intimacy” means “Into-Me-See.” That says it all. If we want intimacy, we must be willing to let people see into us and we must be willing to see into them and not be shocked or appalled by what we find. But before we get too far into discussing intimacy with people, let’s discuss intimacy with God.

Under the Old Covenant legalistic system that demanded the following of rules and regulations, people did not frequently experience intimacy or closeness with God. They merely tried to please Him by keeping rules and they made sacrifices of animals and other things to pay for their mistakes. This system kept them busy, but it didn’t bring them close to God. A wall of separation was forever erected between God and man. God is holy and men are sinners, and their sin separates them from God. Thankfully, God was not willing to leave us in that condition. He had a plan for our deliverance, and His Name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who took on the form of a human being and came to Earth to pay for our sins and open wide the door of access to God.

On the day that Jesus died and paid for the sins of man, the skies became dark and the earth shook and the thick veil or curtain in the Temple that separated the holy place from the Most Holy Place was torn in half from top to bottom (see Luke 23:44–45). Ordinary people had never been allowed to go beyond the separating curtain into the Most Holy Place where God’s presence dwelt; only the high priest could enter once a year (see Hebrews 9:6–7). So this tearing of the veil was very meaningful to them. It was God saying loud and clear,
“Come close to Me… you’re welcome in My presence.”

Previously, even the thought of being in God’s presence terrified the people, so this was a big change for them. God was willing to be intimate with them, but were they willing to be intimate with Him? Are we willing to be intimate with God? Are we willing to let Him into every area of our lives? These are big questions and they should not be answered without some serious forethought.

Are there areas in your life that you are unwilling to open to God? What if you invited Him in and He asked you to change something that you don’t want to change? Or what if He asks you to do something that you don’t want to do? Those thoughts frighten us, so we protect our private spaces, and in the process we forfeit intimacy with God. It is interesting to note that God already knows everything about us, but He won’t force His way into any area of our lives. He waits to be invited. God wants to be wanted!

Would you be willing to pray this prayer right now?

If you prayed that prayer, you might want to buckle your seat belt for the ride of your life. God’s ways are not our ways, but His ways are much better. They may shock you at first, and God will probably show you some things that you don’t necessarily want to look at, but the value of intimacy with God is inestimable, immeasurable, and greater than anything you can imagine.

For me, intimacy with God has been much easier to develop than intimacy with people. People are not perfect, they can be disappointing,
and their expectations are quite unreasonable at times. Without sounding negative, which I do not want to do, I feel I need to say that developing intimacy with people is challenging. First of all, it takes people who are willing to work through the process in order to have intimacy. Getting to know people intimately takes time, understanding, and a willingness to be deeply honest. Although there may be some things that are reserved for only God and us, we will need to open up and let people into our private space to some degree. The level of intimacy we enjoy will partially depend on how open we are willing to be.

Some people’s secrets are making them sick. They have things hidden inside of them that eat away at them. They live in fear of people finding out what their secret is, but the best thing they could possibly do is find someone they can trust and start talking, confessing, venting, and in short, unloading the things that frighten and imprison them. Once a thing is exposed it loses its power over you. It is only the things hidden in darkness that Satan uses to threaten us.

April had an abortion when she was 17 years old. Her boyfriend, who was older than she, made all the arrangements, and April never told anyone. She felt guilty and was fearful that God would punish her for what she had done. April lived her life with this secret burden. She met a man when she was 22; they fell in love and got married, but the relationship was strained. She still had her secret burden!

A few years went by and they wanted to have children, but April never got pregnant. She was convinced that God was punishing her for the abortion, but still she had not shared her secret with her husband. The doctor assured her there was no medical reason why she and her husband could not have children, and he suggested that her inability to conceive was due to stress. In the midst of this dilemma, April reached out to God and received Jesus as her Savior. She felt so much better after unloading her burden to God that she decided to share with her husband. She was fearful of his judgment once he knew her secret, but just the opposite occurred. He was of course surprised, but he understood that she was young and had made a mistake. He forgave her for not being open with him, and finally April was able to relax in God’s love and her husband’s. Within three months April was pregnant and they now have three children and a wonderful life.

I kept the secret of the sexual abuse I experienced for many long years, and when I finally did share it, my burden began to get lighter. I needed years of healing, but the beginning of all healing is dealing with your pain openly and honestly.

There are some secrets that we don’t need to share. I strongly believe there are some things that should always remain between God and us. Some of those things might be secret things that we believe He has said to us, or shown us. They might not be understood by others, and people’s reactions might discourage and disappoint us.

I also believe we should not tell people things that will devastate them while doing them no good. We should not relieve our burden at the cost of giving one to someone else. For example, I once had a lady come to me after hearing me teach on being truthful, and she wanted to share with me how she had always
disliked me and now wanted to ask me to forgive her. Of course, I did tell her she was forgiven, but her confession put all kinds of questions in my mind about what I may have done to make her dislike me. She got rid of her problem, but she gave me one. This is not healthy intimacy, and if we are going to seek intimacy we must realize that it needs to be healthy for both parties.

Intimacy may require some godly confrontation. You may desire an improved relationship with someone who has hurt you, or continues to hurt you with words or actions, and a deeper relationship with them is not possible as long as you feel you need to have your guard up each time you are with them. Pray first, choose a right time, and share with them in a loving way. Confrontation almost always makes a relationship better or worse. If it makes it better, then you can move on to deeper levels of friendship; if it makes it worse, then you may lose a friend. The search for deeper and more meaningful relationships can be costly.

I don’t give up on relationships easily. I have had to confront and be confronted in several situations and have found that if we both continue to work through the issues at hand, our relationship gets stronger. However, let me say again, it does take two people who are willing. You are only responsible for your part, so do your best and trust God to give good healthy relationships.

People who fear intimacy are not willing to share emotions and true feelings. They pretend that they are fine when they aren’t,
and appear to be untouched by anything when the reality is that inside they are wounded and bleeding.

They are very private in an unbalanced way. We do of course have a right to privacy, but intimacy is not possible unless we are willing to let the one we desire to have intimacy with into some areas of our private life. I happen to be a very open person, and since I am, I tend to ask a lot of questions that could appear to be none of my business. I often tell people, “If I am getting into things you are not comfortable with, just tell me.” Sharing my past and even my current faults openly is one of the things God has used to set me free, and I believe it is one of the things He uses to help others through my teaching. I am gifted with openness, but not everyone is and we should always respect people’s privacy. However, if individuals are unwilling to let people into any area of their lives, then intimacy and closeness are not possible.

While I am writing this section, I am also attending a manager’s retreat for our leadership team. I talked with them about the importance of facing and admitting our weaknesses. I asked a few people what they thought their greatest weakness was and as they openly shared, it ended up helping several other people. One of the managers later said, “We have been talking among ourselves and we think that if we shared our weaknesses more openly instead of living in fear of people finding out about them, we could really help each other, and our bond would become stronger.” I said, “Amen!”

Those who fear intimacy generally feel threatened when they think someone is going to ask them about private matters. They have many fears concerning themselves, and they’ve practiced hiding for so long that the fear of people truly knowing them is overwhelmingly frightening. People with this fear may have
many surface relationships, but they quickly escape any relationship that starts to go deeper.

Past hurts, or trauma of some kind, are almost always the root of the fear of intimacy. God has created us with a desire for connectedness, and when we fear it, there is always a reason. People want to be connected with others, but they are often afraid of the process, so they live isolated and lonely lives. We should do it afraid and begin to enjoy the beauty of genuine, close relationships. I have found that the Bible is a book about relationships. It is about our relationship with God, our relationship with our self, and our relationships with other people. All of these should be healthy and emotionally satisfying.

There are many reasons for the fear of intimacy, but thankfully we can overcome those fears and enjoy close, healthy, and intimate relationships. Getting to the root of our problems is step one toward freedom, and step two is being unwilling to remain that way once we figure out the root problem. Thankfully, we can fully understand why we are a certain way and still not be willing to remain that way. Jesus died to restore to us all that was lost to us through sin and evil, and we should pursue it with the help of the Holy Spirit. My connection with my parents was dysfunctional to say the least. I certainly did not learn from them how to have healthy, intimate relationships, but I have learned it from the Word of God and the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our Teacher, and if we are willing to lay aside our fears, He will lead us into satisfying and close relationships.

One of the reasons why people have difficulty connecting closely with others is a lack of social interest. They may be workaholics
who have found their worth and value in work alone. They have very few, if any, interests, and therefore have no basis for connection. If we want people to be interested in us, then we must learn to be interesting. One thing we can do is educate ourselves in things that others are interested in so we have a broader basis for conversation. Dave loves sports and watches almost all of the various games that are on television. Quite often in the morning I will ask him who won the baseball game, or the football game, or the golf match. I ask, not because I am that interested in the sport, but I am interested in him. I know that he enjoys talking about sports, and one way I can connect with him is to listen. When he goes to play golf, I always ask him about his game that day. If we are interested in what others are interested in, then it makes us interesting to them. It provides a connection between us and is a good starting point for more meaningful relationships.

Another way to connect with people is to know what they like and enjoy so you can help provide it for them. If we do nothing for one another, then we have no part in each other’s lives. If we truly listen to people, they tell us what they like, want, or need, and it becomes easy to make them happy. When we make people happy or help them to feel good about themselves, they always like us. People may not remember everything you say to them, but they always remember how you made them feel.