Last night Clint and I did our Bible study and talked about how important it is not just that we continually to grow as individuals & closer together, but grow in our faiths and closer to God – because by growing closer to God, we will simultaneously grow closer together.
When applied to marriage, this triangle shows how if one spouse grows closer to God (moving up the side of the triangle) while the other spouse remains at the lowest point on his or her side of the triangle, the distance between the spouses increases. From experience I have learned that one person stronger/more mature in the faith doesn’t pull the other up to their level, but instead the other pulls them down, down, further down the triangle, away from God. If one person is not pursuing God, they want to pull their significant other closer to themselves, which pulls them away from God.
But if both spouses move closer to God (each moving up their respective sides of the triangle), the distance between the spouses decreases. In other words, by coming closer to God, they come closer to each other. As I have also experienced, a man whose heart is after God points me to God & compels me to pursue God to know the man better & to grow so I can be a better person for this man.
I found this triangle diagram in this article by Joe Beam. He talks about our craving for intimacy with God. It’s good stuff, true stuff, and I drank it up. I also have started reading “Lady in Waiting” – a book about Ruth in the Bible and the lessons unmarried women can learn from her life. It is also about how, as an unmarried woman, my security is in God, and I can rest in Him and trust Him to love me, provide for me, and give me His best. I’ve read it before and seen where I’ve underlined it during my single days. Though I am not single right now, I have to fight the urge not to long for marriage and resent that it is years away but instead trust that God can & does & will use this time now – time I’ll never get back – to develop my relationship with Him & prepare me to be the wife my future husband needs me to be.
Last night I read about 1 Peter 3:3-4: Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
“The unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” – that’s what I want & need God to develop in me now, now when I have relatively very few responsibilities clamoring for my time, as opposed to those which come with married life, motherhood, working, maintaining a house. I have time NOW to spend with God, grow with God, develop intimacy with God, and long for him more than longing for my future spouse.
But I can still daydream, right? I mean, clearly bright pink is going to be factored in there somewhere, and when I saw this reality TV star’s wedding dress I thought oooo, ahhhh:
The Joe Beam article is worth a read, check it out!
The Craving for Intimacy with God
By Joe Beam, as seen on www.joebeam.com
Not only did God create us to crave intimacy with our spouses, He also created us to have just as strong a desire for intimacy with Him. And just as a human alone is only a part of the whole, people without God are only a part of what God intended them to be.
Hear this well: You will never achieve intimacy with your mate to the level God intended if each of you doesn’t also strive for intimacy with Him.
Don’t underestimate the power of what you just read. It isn’t just “religious” talk; it’s the absolute truth. Let me say it again: If you want the deepest level of intimacy with each other, you must first each develop a deep level of personal intimacy with God. If you try to develop marital intimacy without intimacy with God, you will shortchange yourself and your mate.
What makes me so sure of that? Again, it’s the way God made us. Let me illustrate that from the Bible by sharing the outpourings of the inspired psalmist as he articulates his deep craving for intimacy with God on high.
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you... Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands... On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night... My soul clings to you. (Psalm 63:1, 3-4, 6, 8)
“Your love is better than life.” Quite a statement, isn’t it? He sounds like a man completely lost in his love for a woman. But it isn’t that kind of intimacy he craves here. It’s just as intense, but it’s directed not toward another human but toward God Himself.
You Have this Craving
Whether you recognize it or not, you, too, have that kind of longing for the presence of God. That need is just as inherent in us as our need for union with another person. But just as some people are too misfocused or unfocused to understand their need for intimacy with a mate, others are too misfocused or unfocused to understand their need for intimacy with God. The craving is there but buried under layers of misdirection and misunderstanding.
If a person says he or she doesn’t need God, does this mean the need is not there? No; it just means that the need isn’t acknowledged. And because it isn’t acknowledged, the person is missing out on the most fulfilling relationship he or she could have — intimacy with God. Unfortunately, it means missing out on the second most fulfilling relationship as well. A lack of intimacy with God affects not only your relationship with God but also your relationship with your spouse.
That even applies when one spouse craves and seeks intimacy with God and the other doesn’t. That couple’s intimacy suffers as well. If either of the spouses varies greatly from the other in any of the three areas of intimacy (sexual, emotional, and spiritual), they drift farther apart rather than coming closer together. But if both come closer to God their intimacy grows dramatically.
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