Intimacy is hindered absent certain ingredients. Let's look at seven ingredients from Ephesians 5 for fun, fulfilling marriages, families and friendships.
Ingredient #1: Acceptance. Regardless of our imperfections the best marriages, families and friendships contain people who accept each other while encouraging each other to grow. Ephesians 5:1 Amplified Bible says, "THEREFORE BE imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]."
Sometimes we fail to accept people the way they are. A mother told a daughter with stubby fingers and little sense of rhythm, "I have such lovely, long fingers and play the piano like a virtuoso. Why don't you practice the piano more?"
Ingredient #2: Security. While some friendships may need to be pruned off our life because they are sucking nutrients out of us and/or our family, secure people are committed to relationships even through problems.
God doesn't give up on us because we have problems. He gives us enthusiastic, extravagant, enlightened love. Since He is our model, as believers the more we do likewise the better our relationships will be with God, self and others.
Ingredient #3: Chosen. We don't have to be married, parents or friends. We choose these relationships. These are not one-time choices. In good relationships we are choosing our spouse, children and friends over and over again. We hunger to be desired continuously. If we aren't enjoying our spouse, family or friends, then it sucks out some of their enjoyment.
Everyone is an individual. Learn each others likes and dislikes. We want to be liked for who we really are. Ephesians 5:10 New Living Translation Bible says, "Carefully determine what pleases the Lord."
God is for people. He wants us to experience pleasure in His presence and the presence of His people.
One of the key ways we receive pleasure is through edifying conversation. Learn to say things that bring out the best in people. For married people a saying goes, "99 percent of sex happens between the ears." Woo him or her with the most effective, encompassing words rooted in the Word. John 1:1-3 Amplified Bible says, "IN THE beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and come into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men."
God is the Creator of sexuality and sex. Learn more and more about God, and you will learn more and more about how to be a sexy single or sexy married person. God knows all the sexual positions, and many that you don't know about!
Ingredient #4: Support. We are not the same people. We have some interests in common and some that are different, but good people support each others individuality. They also protect their life and relationships by on purpose preparing lots of time to listen and to understand those we share a relationship with and to maintain and foster unity.
Ingredient #5: Thankfulness. Thankfulness is expressed in attitudes and actions that communicate, "I'm not perfect. You are not perfect, but I am thankful we are together. I am thankful for the memories, the present and the future."
Big-picture thinking doesn't dismiss the petty arguments and small inconveniences, but also does not become absorbed in them. Big-picture thinking focuses on the overall benefits in good relationships.
We can have seasons were Satan seeks to wear us out with discouraging circumstances and/or relationships. God is using these same circumstances and/or relationships to allow His fruit of the Spirit on the inside to be plucked for food on the outside.
"When it comes to food for thought, some of us are on a hunger strike," says activist Dick Gregory. We are thinking, talking and acting out negative attitudes and actions like, "I'm tired. You're getting on my nerves. I'm going to put you out of the house," for situations and circumstances God isn't finished with.
We may be reading our Bibles, put not practically applying the Word in some areas. Our physical body is part of the temple of God. It too has to be nourished. Some of us do inadequate or no physical exercise depriving us of one source of stamina that supports our spiritual and mental health.
Much of life is interconnected. We have to pay attention and nurture our relationship with God, self and others on many levels.
Ingredient #6: Wisdom. Good decisions come from a good heart. Daniel Hale Williams was the first African-American cardiologist, and the first to perform successful open-heart surgery in the United States. We will need to leave our hearts open for God to perform surgery on them slicing out our numerous sins.
Sin isn't sexy. Sin acts as a spoiler in our relationships.
Not many of us would want others to be able to see all of our thoughts! However, God can, and He sees how these thoughts help and hurt people. We are responsible to be wise enough to continually seek spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical growth through cooperating with God the Holy Ghost to develop more of the God inside. The more God controls the inside, the more our outward behavior will bring out the best in people.
Perhaps you had a child in your 40s or 50s that wasn't exactly planned and have not cooperated with God to have the disappointment, resentment, anger, jealousy and other hostility in your heart removed, so now it seeps out on your child and others. Many have lived in relationships filled with the agony of indifference or hatred.
Ingredient #7: Clear Direction. By reserving our most close relationships for those who have the same faith and purpose in life, we are building ourselves up instead of working against each other. Ideas have consequences. Christians believe in hope and the multifaceted goodness of our God that is primarily expressed through His people. Not everyone believes the same. Chandragupta Maurya, the first emperor of India, with a kingdom stretching from Punjab to Karnataka, more than 300 years after Alexander the Great had died, chose his own death as a devout Jain who starved himself to death on a hilltop at Sravanabelgola.
Being equally yoked with spouses, family and friends is not simply sharing the same Christian faith. "Yoked" is a farming reference. When a farmer would plow a field, he would use a yoke to join two animals. The farmer paired two animals of equal strength to work together to produce a straight line in the field.
Before marriage a wise couple talks about the nature of our relationship with God, self, family and friends, the desired frequency of sex, the acceptable behaviors with opposite-sex friends, the purpose and use of money, the number of children, the lifestyle and as many things as possible. The more agreement and equal strength before marriage the less potential relationship conflict after marriage. While we all change, we also have a certain character and personality that may remain remarkably consistent throughout adulthood. A couple where the wife desires sex seven days a week, but the husband desires sex once a month probably should have never said, "I do."
Sex is a central part of the oneness in marriage. Genesis 2:24-25 New Living Translation Bible says, "This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame."
Sexual incompatibility is a serious issue. A wife who keeps asking her husband for sex and habitually receives, "I'm not in the mood," or some other rejection will likely begin to receive messages of shame and low self-worth while the husband may feel personally attacked and unappreciated.
Sexual abuse is also something we should share with our partner by the time we are engaged. Bollywood actress Sofia Hayat was sexually abused by her uncle when she was 10 years old. Minister Noel Jones was molested by a man in a Christian church bathroom when he was in elementary school. Rape, date rape, molestation, incest and various types of sexual abuse are experienced by people of all ages, races, genders and religions and often have a profound impact on our behavior.
Reading the seven ingredients you may have noticed some things you are doing that don't bring out the best in people. Now is a good time to talk to God and to begin the process of incorporating the seven above ingredients of intimacy from Ephesians 5 into your life. Please leave a comment sharing how God has helped you to learn to be intimate and have intimacy. Please also join me Thursdays for relationship group by contacting me at michefrancesjackson@gmail.com.
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