Intimacy Insights

Divine intimacy grows when the deep longing for the lover, naturally leads to unconditional submission of the beloved to the lover. This longing within is initiated and sustained by eros and is perfected by agape. It is a response to the self-giving, spiritual leadership of the lover who never ceases to seek me out from the depths of my helplessness.

If Jesus is the bridegroom who comes seeking me and beckoning me to become one with his divine nature just as in pure nuptial union, can I deal with Him as Eve did with Adam in the state of original innocence (before the fall) and still be fair?

Is it akin to how the loving wife deals with her loving husband who is the most powerful man in the world? When there is sincere and authentic love, the power, authority of the lover isn't something to be afraid of. Only the guilty needs to fear. 

Two things are necessary for divine intimacy:

1. I should believe what God thinks of me (as precious, invaluable, honorable and beautiful and worthy of his love)
2. I should realise to the core of my bones that even the tiny fragment my life is fully dependant on God. It is His mercy and love that sustains me, even for a milli second.

If intimacy Jesus seeks from me is like Eve's love for Adam before original sin, as a person severely wounded and debilitated by original sin, how can I purely pursue Jesus my lover today? Isn't my reality is very different? Am I not clearly impure and unworthy?

Sin has caused me to cave in and hide myself away from beauty and light into doom and darkness. I have built around me walls of thorns and thistles and sealed it with ugliness and hatred, ignorance and pride, licentiousness and greed so that none may see me or come to me and that I may wallow in my guilt, self pity, lack of self knowledge and self esteem, totally unaware of my value and dignity. Doesn't the devil mastermind and oversee this distruction of my precious self, cause he is a murderer from the begining.

Jesus, the lover of my soul comes seeking me, knowing fully well that I'm a Lily among brambles and precious stone covered in dirt. Nothing stops him. He walks right into my ugliness, clearing out the walls I built of thorns and thistles. His body bleeds with cuts and bruises. He looks weak and weary. He pursues me passionately despite gruelling pain and cruelty inflicted by evil. He reaches out to me from the wood of the cross. He pays the price for my life with his life. He clears the way for me to true life of freedom and intimacy with Him. I have found the lover of my soul. 

This journey that Christ makes to me is the passion of Christ. The journey that I ought to make in response to this is my spiritual life, the journey towards self mastery and divine perfection, holding me close to my lover who never ceases to see my worth and beauty, who will never give up on me. So He cries out "Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like...." Song of songs 4: 1-15