“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
Genesis 2:25
Our team was recently asked to speak at a marriage conference regarding the topic of spiritual intimacy in marriage. It prompted us to prioritize sharing a few things via the blog to encourage you in your marriage relationship, and the importance of pursuing spiritual intimacy.
Have you considered the different ways you connect in your marriage? The ways in which you experience deep connection. Intimacy can be defined as experiencing oneness with another person. We can experience this connection in a few ways. We read in Genesis that Adam and Eve were both naked and unashamed. They were able to undress physically, emotionally, and spiritually with no shame. Married couples need to be able to undress in each of those ways without resentment and embarrassment.
Different Kinds of Intimacy
Physical intimacy is one of those ways a couple moves towards oneness in their relationship. This is what we have been focusing on via the CFL podcast. We encourage you to check it out!
Emotional intimacy is another way we connect. The way that you interact with your spouse emotionally draws you towards one another. What happens when two people find each other attractive and begin to interact? They connect on an emotional level. There is eye contact and a desire to learn more about the other person. You find yourself laughing and wanting to spend more time together because of the way the other person makes you feel. Sadly, this is an area where many couples fail to continue connecting. You stop pursuing each other emotionally. Your interactions tend to be more out of necessity and often negative. The little-to-no positive interaction in marriage creates chasms in the relationship that can be difficult to overcome. More on this later…
Spiritual Intimacy!
What do you mean spiritual intimacy?
While we can quickly understand what it means to by physically and emotionally intimate, we may find it difficult to grasp what it means to be spiritual intimate.
Spiritual intimacy must be experienced personally if we ever hope to share in this with our spouse. Personally, our spiritual journey begins by believing in Jesus with our heart and confessing Jesus with our mouth. We experience a conversion of our soul and deep change that has been experienced because you have been born again.
Let’s define spiritual intimacy this way- the passionate pursuit of oneness with the Lord that spills over into our relationship with others. After our relationship with the Lord, there should be no greater spiritual intimacy than the oneness experienced with our spouse. Spiritual intimacy involves connection at a soul level. It seems that Jesus summarized it well when he was approached by the Pharisees.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:36-40
Consider the simplicity and yet profoundness of Jesus’ reply. Jesus summarized over 600 Old Testament laws with two actions. We are to love God with every fiber of our being and in turn, love others as we love ourselves. I know for a fact that loving me (Roland) is not easy. 🙂 Yet Tammy shows her love for me every day in so many ways.
Intimacy with God Affects Everything Else
It should be our love for God that spills over in to how we love each other. It is God’s unconditional love towards us that opens the door to spiritual intimacy between a couple. When we experience God’s love it draws us towards Him, and we want to spend time with God. We want to study His Word and share about Him with others. If we are pursuing God in this way, we can then be sharing this as a couple. Practically we should be praying together, reading the Bible together, sharing our most intimate thoughts with one another. Remember, undressing in every way and there is no shame.
We pray for you as a couple. Our desire is that you can experience every aspect of intimacy with one another. May your pursuit of spiritual intimacy with one another allow you to experience deeper levels of intimacy emotionally and physically.
Get alone with God. Prioritize getting alone with your spouse. Open up to God and open up to each other. Commit to accepting one another by FAITH as you undress and expose those areas of your life that you’ve been hesitant to share. It will be in these moments that God can heal, your spouse can accept you as you are, and the deep bond of spiritual intimacy can be experienced.
