The Keys to Deepening Intimacy in Relationships

Intimacy. It almost sounds like a dirty word. For many people today, the idea of sharing your body is much more approachable than opening up and sharing your thoughts, feelings, fears and regrets. And, it is exactly this inability to be open with each other that is keeping us from experiencing the deeper and more fulfilling joys of our relationships, rather than just the temporary and life-sapping high of a tinder one night stand or a huge social media list of fans and followers but no one you can actually call “friend.” Stick around, because today we are continuing our relationships resolutions December series with the keys to deepening intimacy in relationships and it all starts with accountability!

Proverbs 27: 6Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

This bit of wisdom runs so counter cultural to everything we are led to believe today. If my friend challenges me, they’re judging me. If they tell me that I am wrong, they’re silencing my truth. If they aren’t celebrating my every life choice, then they hate me. The modern lie is that correction and rebuke are unloving, when the Bible actually tells us the exact opposite.

Again, from Proverbs:

My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline    or be weary of his reproof,for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. - Proverbs 3:11-12

So, why is opening up and being vulnerable, allowing friends or even God to correct or rebuke us so hard? Do we really think that we know it all and have all the answers? Well, kind of.

This is the not-so-subtle arrogance hidden under the veneer of love, tolerance and acceptance. The idea is that we are all free to choose to live however we want to in our lives and be whoever or whatever we choose to be. And actually, yesish... To a large degree we have a lot of freedom in those choices. There are some immutable characteristics which we can try to cover but cannot fundamentally change, but there are a lot of areas that we do have a large degree of autonomy over in our lives. If the argument were that a responsible, legal adult can choose to do this or that in their lives, I don’t think we would have a whole lot of issues. No, the problem enters in when it is insisted that whatever choices we make should have no negative repercussions, no unintended consequences to ourselves or others. That is where things fall off the rails and that is where objectors start to have problems.

To clarify just a little bit, it’s not usually... (there are always extremes to any side of an argument) that people are saying “you can’t” but rather, “you shouldn’t.” Again, there are some exeptions. There are things that you just cannot do or change about yourself no matter how much you try – the immutable characteristics – and there are people who will abuse the parameters of your relationship to try to control or manipulate you. Most issues, however, are going to fall in between those two sides, where you want to do something you shouldn’t do and your friend is trying to lovingly help correct your course.

But, they’re not always right and you’re not always wrong. So, how do you know when you should trust your friend and when you should trust yourself. The good news is that you don’t have to solely rely on either of you. The best and healthiest standard for intimacy is an intimacy that is submitted to the Lordship of God. As Christians, we don’t have to wonder. Another one from proverbs and just a verse or two before our last passage:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.8 It will be healing to your flesh    and refreshment to your bones. - Proverbs 3:5-8

We aren’t supposed to rely on solely on our own intellect and experiences or even on the intellect and experiences of the people we trust most. At the end of the day, our final authority has to be the Word of God. We know which friends we can trust and be willing to go deeper in intimacy with by recognizing who are the ones who will consistently point us back to scripture rather than just feeding us their own opinions. It’s those people who we can take the heavier, weightier things we’re going through and allow them to help us weigh out our choices in light of scripture. You can’t trust just anyone with the deep issues of your heart, and even the people who have known us the longest or been most supportive in the past might not be able to be trusted to give us the hardest truths when we need them the most. Finding the ones who are willing to hold us accountable to what God has said is the key to going deeper and developing relationships that will be a wellspring in your life for years to come.