BY JASON SCHIFO
Author John Eldredge, in his book “The Sacred Romance”, shares the pain of not belonging: “Being left out is one of life’s most painful experiences. I remember the daily fourth-grade torture of waiting in line while the captains chose their teams for the kickball games. As each captain took turns choosing a player, descending from best to worst, our rank in fourth-grade society was reinforced. Though others fared worse than I — “Don’t make us take Smitty, we had him last time”—I was never the first to be chosen.”
“No one ever said, “Wait—we get Eldredge this time!” I didn’t feel wanted; at best, I felt tolerated. And then there was junior high cafeteria. After buying lunch, you carried your tray out into the dining room, looking for a place to eat. There was an unspoken hierarchy that determined where you could sit. I walked over to table filled with the “cool” kids, but before I could sit down, one of them sneered, “Not here, Eldredge, we’re saving this for someone else.”
“On the other hand, there is great joy in having someone save a place for us. Where someone cares, waves us over, pointing to a chair they have held on to especially for us. It is powerful because, throughout our lives, each one of us lives with a constant nagging that we never quite fit in, we never truly belong. And it is so easy to give in and retreat. We’ve all had enough experience to teach us that we will never be allowed into the “sacred circle,” the place of intimacy…”
Every day I run into people that say, “we have arrived.” That this is the best time to live. Yet, as I look around there is a growing fear of being close to others, of being intimate and experiencing intimacy. We have never been farther from what is good and right for us.
There is an ever-growing fear of intimacy, both personally and as a culture, and it is affecting our relationship with God. This fear of intimacy is not often clearly defined, and can often be misinterpreted as anger, indifference, or coldness. Certainly, when we look at our culture we can see a fear of intimacy masquerading as anger, indifference, intolerance, and coldness to one another.
Those who have a fear of intimacy may experience:
Low self-esteem: We live in a culture that actually promotes a sense of “not good enough.
Trust issues: Every issue has a conspiracy theory and those who have a fear of intimacy may be highly suspect of the motives of even the most genuine and generous of individuals.
Episodes of anger: Have you noticed the sharp rise in “triggers,” commonly known as the things that lead to anger. It isn’t that there are more things to trigger our anger, but that we have more anger that needs avenues and outlets of expression.
Avoid physical contact with others: Studies have proven that physical intimacy is falling amongst all age brackets. Couples, against all advice, are spending far less time “together,” even when they are together.
Trouble forming or committing to close relationships
History of unstable relationships
Inability to share feelings or express emotion
Insatiable sexual desire: We see this in the rise to the epidemic of pornography. In 2019 pornography has become the number one online media platform.
Live in self-imposed isolation: We call this “social media”. A place of isolation where we are alone, together. No wonder so many who fear intimacy seek refuge in this place.
All these things point to and affirm the fact, that we have a growing fear of intimacy.
Dr. Hal Shorely, Ph.D., believes that part of our growing fear of intimacy is connected to attachment theory. This is the theory that children have a natural need to remain close enough to their parents in order to attain protection and comfort when frightened or distressed. How the parent responds in these instances has a major impact on a child’s ability to experience intimacy.
The parents of children who avoid, dismiss, marginalize or reject neediness or perceived weaknesses of their children, “Avoidance Parenting”, create a fear of intimacy in their children. In very subtle ways “avoidance parenting” uses shame as a means of control, by saying things like, “Come on, little boys don’t cry”, and in more obvious ways “avoidance parenting” it is very intolerant of children sharing they feel.
Other patterns that create a fear of intimacy are when parents are emotionally distant, or “Long Distance Parenting”. This removes the place where a child can express himself or herself. And without a place to express themselves as they are, through the experience of parental intimacy, they have an inability to understand intimacy themselves.
“Helicopter Parenting” can also create a fear of intimacy by being so intrusive and over-reactive to the child’s experiences that the child does not experience a natural place to communicate their neediness and weakness in the parent’s presence. In this case, rather than the parent regulating the child’s anxiety, the child is regulating the parent’s anxiety.
Lastly, parents that are detached from their parenting, “Absentee Parenting”, due to work, personal interests, recreation, or an unfortunate cultural trend that sees parenting as optional, creates a void for a child to express their neediness and weakness.
In each of these, the child learns to cope with their emotions by choosing not to experience them. They essentially say, “I am OK”, even when they are not. Because intimacy creates vulnerability, the response “I am OK” helps them avoid sharing their struggles and needs with others.
Why am I interested in this? Because as I have studied the growing trend of a fear of intimacy in our culture, the fear of sharing our needs and weakness with others, I have seen a direct correlation with our unwillingness to be intimate with God.
This leads me to the thought I have been wrestling. Our growing fear of intimacy is affecting our relationship with God because at the heart of our relationship with the Divine is intimacy. When we come into the presence of God we are unable to hide anything because He knows everything. Intimacy is inherent to every part of our relationship with God.
The greatest Biblical example of this comes just after the events that shattered the intimacy of our relationship. In Genesis 3:8, Adam and Eve have just eaten the forbidden fruit and it says, “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
The first thing Adam did after declaring his independence from God, by sinning, was hide from His presence. Why? Because the presence of God is the place of true intimacy. We know this because earlier in the text it says that Adam and Eve, “were naked and without shame” (Genesis 2:25). There was nothing between Adam and Eve, and God that could not be exposed; it was a true place of intimacy, there was no shame in weakness or neediness.
So, in Genesis 3, the first thing to go is intimacy, and Adam and Eve hid for fear that their neediness and weakness would become evident in their folly. They also knew that when they heard the LORD coming, He would want to be with them as He always had, in a very natural, close, intimate way.
Genesis 3:9-10 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
When the opportunity for intimacy comes they hide from God. Note that they don’t speak to God until there is a confrontation; until God speaks to them. This shows that Adam and Eve knew that their attempt to flee intimacy had failed. They knew their facade was completely inadequate, and that indeed we are fearful of being close to God.
Remember the traits of someone who fears intimacy? Adam and Eve had them. They had low self-esteem, they suddenly developed trust issues, and actively avoiding physical contact with the almighty. They no longer could commit to these close relationships, and they were unable, in a genuine way, to share their feelings or express their emotion. So they chose to live in self-imposed isolation by hiding in the shrubbery.
Yet, God calls out, “where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).
We can hide, but God desires intimacy with them, and with you, and He is not detoured from offering what His children deeply need. He does not want to simply know about you, friend you on social media, and follow your exploits from a distance. God is not willing to avoid us, be an absentee parent, stand at a distance or helicopter around us. God’s desire is to show you how deeply He knows you, and how much He loves you.
In the Book of Jeremiah, God tells the people, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (31:3) These words can only be spoken by someone truly invested in the kind of love free of the fear that seeks deep intimacy. And in the purest way, only God can offer what we are missing. By teaching us what it means to be close to one another by being close to Him.
