We All Need Intimacy - It's Much More than You Might Think

What comes to mind when someone says the word intimacy?

If someone asked you to define it, what would you say?

If you're like many people, it was a pretty small box and involved a specific relationship between two people.

I took a chance and googled "definition of intimacy." I wasn't sure what would come up or if I would quickly regret that search. I don't know about beyond the first page of results of the search, but that first page was safe and gave some interesting insight.

There were two things that came up on that first page - definitions of the word from a variety of dictionaries and articles on web-pages for a few different Christian organizations. As I read through what I found, I was struck by a couple of things.

First, the dictionary definitions were generally quite broad and spoke about a friendship where was some level of familiarity between the friends. This was well before any mention of and quite separate from a mention of sexual relationship we often assume is meant by the word intimacy.

Second, it was the writings from Christian organizations that made intimacy out to something was only part of a sexual relationship. Whether they meant to or not, I think most who read those articles would walk away thinking intimacy was only sexual.

Ina time where we talk about how highly sexualized our society is, seeing this made me wonder if we, as the church, aren't at minimum, unwitting contributors to it. Now, I didn't go looking any further for websites that spoke about intimacy from a non-Christian perspective because I wasn't sure what I would find. But, I am left with some questions about Christian contributions to the conversation.

In limiting our discussion of intimacy to sexual relationships, I believe we're missing out on what it should and could be. And, we're contributing to the loneliness epidemic - especially among single Christian adults by doing so.

Sam Allberry addresses this topic quite extensively in his book 7 Myths About Singleness. He writes:

"But the choice between marriage and celibacy is not the choice between intimacy and loneliness, or at least it shouldn't be. We can manage without sex. We know this - Jesus himself lived as a celibate man. So did Paul. Many others have done so as well. But we are not designed to live without intimacy. . . . In the West, we have virtually collapsed sex and intimacy into each other. Where you have one, you are assumed to have the other. We can't really conceive of genuine intimacy without it being ultimately sexual."

But, in doing so, we've missed the point. And we've contributed to the loneliness epidemic we're in the middle of.

So, what is intimacy? What does it look like?

It's friendship. It's those friendships where you allow each other to get close enough that you can speak words of encouragement and challenge to each other. Where you're vulnerable enough with each other that you could hurt each other if you broke the trust of that friendship.

Once again, Sam Allberry explains it well:

"A friend is someone you tell your secrets to, someone you let in on the real things going on in your life. They're the one who really know what's going on with you. They know your temptations, and they know what most delights your heart. They know how to pray for you instinctively. This is true intimacy. In our world, being deeply known and deeply loved often feel like alternatives. We worry that if someone really knows us, they might not love us as much. . . . By its very nature, friendship is a wonderful form of intimacy. The friend is the person who knows you are your sparkling best and shameful worst and still loves you. To be so deeply known and so deeply loved is precious." (7Myths About Singleness)

All of this has led me to wonder if at least part of the problem with the loneliness we see and hear about and experience ourselves if that we don't really know how to do friendship well anymore - especially friendship with people whose lives don't look exactly like ours.