In true Olivia fashion, I am staying up late to finish an article I’ve BEEN KNOWN was due. It’s been in the back of my mind..familiarity and intimacy rolling around in my mind here and there. I’ve read the wisdom of my sisters here thus far this month and gleaned great insight from them on this topic. I just didn’t really seem to have a direction in mind yet..


I didn’t know what I would be lead to write on as it pertains to familiarity//intimacy and I maybe could’ve guessed it would come as I swept the floor of my kitchen (literally sweep my floors all day long and mostly love it because I hear the Lord so clearly during this monotonous chore) but I’ve gotta say that the Scripture that popped into my mind while sweeping the other afternoon seemed a bit out there. 


I mean, imagine just going about your business, cleaning up your kitchen for about the 73rd time that day, and all of a sudden you think to yourself: “..holding to the form of godliness but denying its power.” (2 Timothy 3:5)


Okay..?? 


Well, the good news is: that certainly didn’t come from me. The bad news? I’m procrastinating, praying: Lord, how can I possibly tackle this scripture well?! 


More good news, though: I think the ‘How’ here is the key. 


So this somewhat stunning description in 2 Timothy 3 sums up a rather long line of characteristics of people that will be plentiful in the hard times to come: 


Lovers of self 
Lovers of money
Boastful
Proud
Demeaning 
Disobedient to parents
Ungrateful
Unholy
Unloving 
Irreconcilable 
Slanderers 
Without self-control 
Brutal 
Without love for what is good
Traitors 
Reckless 
Conceited
Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God


These traits all seem to be quite antithetical to those of the fruit of the Spirit and in fact seem to resemble the works of the flesh listed in Galatians 5:19-21. 


And look at this parallel between the two passages here: 


“The works of the flesh are obvious..” Gal 5:19a


“..their foolishness will be clear to all..” 2 Tim 3:9


And all of these descriptors in 2 Timothy 3 are wrapped up with that kind of haunting characteristic: “holding to the form of godliness but denying its power.” 


So- in order to avoid this and to avoid “resisting the truth”, being “corrupt in mind and worthless in regard to the faith” 2 Tim 3:8b (btw-ouch!) is it that we must remain in intimacy with the Holy Spirit? 


There’s this book written by Michael Reeves that I cannot recommend enough, titled Delighting in the Trinity. I kind of wish I could copy/paste the whole chapter on the Holy Spirit and call it a day here because this man’s writing is so intellectual and yet dripping with an awe-inspiring beauty- but I will restrain myself and instead begin with this excerpt: 


“What we love and enjoy is foundationally important. It is far more significant than our outward behavior, for it is our desires that drive our behavior. We do what we want. The Father, Son and Spirit love and enjoy each other and, created in their image, we were made to love and enjoy them. Blindly and foolishly, though, we have all turned to love and enjoy other things- things that in reality are completely unable to satisfy. But the Spirit’s first work is to set our desires in order, to open our eyes and give us the Father’s own relish for the Son, and the Son’s own enjoyment of the Father.” 


Okay, okay, one more:


“The Spirit of the Father and the Son would never be interested in merely empowering us to “do good”. His desire (which is the desire of the Father and the Son) is to bring us to such a hearty enjoyment of God through Christ that we delight to know him, that we delight in all his ways, and that therefore we want to do as he wants and we hate the thought of ever grieving him.” 


Okay, so just now I realized I missed a word in that last quotation and assumed I meant to type that the Spirit’s desire is to bring us to a hearty knowledge of God through Christ. But nope, it was enjoyment. Enjoyment! 


The Spirit enables us to enjoy God through Jesus and He enables us to delight in the Lord! To delight in the Lord, to truly desire Him above all and to delight in following Him, obeying Him, in order that we may please Him and not grieve Him. 


And so if we are enjoying intimacy with the Holy Spirit, who is actually enabling us to share the enjoyment the Father has in the Son and the delight the Son has in the Father, wouldn’t it remain that we will end up looking nothing like that long list above from 2 Timothy 3? 


Wouldn’t it mean that we walk less and less in the flesh and we bear more and more fruit of the Spirit? 


And wouldn’t all of that mean that, remaining in that gift of intimacy with the Holy Spirit, there is no way we would end up having a mere appearance of godliness?! Because we wouldn’t actually be denying the power of the Spirit that produces true godliness but instead walking in it?! 


A couple of weeks ago, I was wiping down the kitchen table (I’m telling you, I am very exciting!) and, okay, honestly, I was doing my best to make the paper towels in my hand go the distance. And so I’m wiping, scrubbing and folding those towels and I suddenly thought, “Do I actually care if this table is clean or am I just aiming to make it look that way?” 


In other words, what is my desire here? 


Completely unlikely- but if this table were to be examined closely, swabbed maybe, would it be found clean or would there be a bunch of junk beyond what the eye can see?  


And so- what about us?! I mean, “Who perceives his unintentional sins?” 


But by the Spirit, we can pray the next part of that psalm, “Cleanse me from my hidden faults.” Psalm 19:12 


And Psalm 19:13: “Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins; do not let them rule me. Then I will be blameless and cleansed from blatant rebellion.” (Emphasis added) 


The Spirit transforms. He cleanses. He beautifies. He gives us new life and new hearts. 


Today..right here, right now, we can ask Him for a deeper intimacy with Him, with eyes to see Him and ears to hear Him. 


We can invite Him in to search our hearts and to create in us clean hearts. 


We can ask Him to transform our desires and to soften our hearts. 


We can ask Him for the ability to walk in obedience, to delight in obedience, even. To please the Lord and to yield to His Holy Spirit immediately and always. 


And we can rejoice because He is the only One who can truly transform us, with a work that goes deeper than any outward ‘cleanness’ ever could. 


“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 


Thank You, Holy Spirit. May we walk intimately with You all the days of our lives. ​

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Yada. Yada. Yada. 


I’m sure you’ve heard it before. A phrase used to finish sentences about things that are so familiar to us that we don’t even need to hear the rest of the story. It replaces words such as:
 so on; and so forth, etc., etcetera, blah blah blah. 


Merriam-Webster defines it as ‘boring or empty talk’. There was even a sitcom years ago that devoted an entire episode around those three little words. 


Yada, yada, yada.


If we’re all familiar with what or who is being talked about then why bother filling in the blanks with real words? Am I right? Well, maybe not. 


It’s been said that familiarity breeds contempt, but I say familiarity breeds assumption. We are so familiar with something or someone we assume we know the rest of the story, or we assume we know the intent behind a friend or family member’s actions. We assume to know someone’s heart in a serious matter. After all, when we hang around someone long enough we become familiar with them. But familiarity does not necessarily give us insight into a person’s heart. 


When Jesus began to teach in the synagogue in his own hometown, many who were familiar with him, who had watched him grow up, and knew his family assumed he could not and should not be doing the things he was doing and took offense at him. Listen to what they had to say about him:
    
    “Where did this man get these things?”  they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sister’s here with us?” And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”  -Mark 6:2b-6


I’m sure they went on talking about Jesus and how he couldn’t possibly be who He proclaimed to be. “After all…he comes from a simple family, we know the family,  isn’t he that carpenter? We know him, he’s one of us, who does he think he is…yada, yada, yada.” Because of their familiarity with Jesus their assumptions brought about their contempt.


But maybe familiarity was not as much of the problem as the fact that there was nothing beyond that. No true intimate knowledge of who this Jesus was. There was no ‘Yada’.  Not the yada, yada kind in the sitcoms. I’m talking about the Old Testament Yada. 


While we flippantly use this word to mean basically, “drab, boring, not worth even repeating,  yeah, I already know this”, God had a much different meaning. He first used this word in Genesis 4:1, which says, “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.”  That word lay was the Hebrew word yada. That’s right. Bet you’ll think twice the next time you might be tempted to finish a sentence with Yada! Yada! Yada! 


So wait, it’s more than you might think. Yada meant, “to know, to be known, to be deeply respected.” Yes, it is often used throughout the Old Testament to describe the act of sexuality between husband and wife, in the context of the holy covenant of marriage.  In Dannah Gresh’ book, The Secret of the Lord, she describes it this way, “It speaks of spiritual and emotional connection. It is the act of being naked emotionally and spiritually before a person. It is the ultimate act of laying all your secrets out to be known.”  So as you can see this word goes far beyond the mere act of sex. There are other places in scripture that speak of sex using the English word, lay…as in Lot’s daughter’s who made the really bad decision to get their dad drunk and have sex with him in order to carry on their family’s name…seeing as how their mom had turned into a pillar of salt. But the word lay in this case(Genesis 19:33), is not yada, but sakab, which means “to exchange bodily emissions.”  Yuck and gross! Absolutely no intimacy in this act. This was not sex as God designed. This was not intimacy.


God’s design for sex involves true intimacy…to know and be known spiritually, emotionally, and physically by your spouse. My husband knows me better than anyone else. We’ve been married 38 years now and we’ve experienced all the ups and downs of married life…and then some. And yes, we are familiar with each other’s ways…and that can sometimes cause problems. Because…assumptions. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that he knows my faults, my imperfections, and most of my deepest darkest secrets, he still loves me. He doesn’t put me down in order to lift himself up in other’s eyes. He respects me. He sees every side of me. He sees me. We have learned to love and respect one another and that allows us to experience true intimacy with joy. This is yada! 


Yada! It has even more meaning when we are talking about our relationship with God. We find this word, yada, throughout the entire Old Testament. It is used nearly 900 times!! Here’s just a few of the ways it is used. 


“He knows [yada] the secrets of the heart.” -Psalm 44:21


“Search me, O God, and know [yada] my heart.” -Psalm 139:23


“O Lord, you have searched me and you know [yada] me.” -Psalm 139:1 


Even though my husband knows me better than any other person on the planet…God knows me even more intimately. When we slow down the word intimacy we get something that sounds like “into me see.”  God sees into the depths of my very soul. Yada implies a desire to know more. An intentional knowing. I believe the deepest desire of the human heart is to be known, to be seen. Nothing hidden. Our deepest longings known. All laid bare in the secret places of the heart. God can be trusted with all of that. 


But here’s the thing. We were created in His image and because of that I believe that God desires that same intimacy with us.  We have that in common with God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Crazy right? He desires to be known by me and by you! He created us to experience yada with Him. 


God walked intimately with Adam and Eve in the garden right up until that fateful day when they chose Satan’s lies over God’s true word. God knew they would fall, but He already had a plan…that’s how much He loves us. 


We have only to accept His plan. His son. Jesus. The work that Jesus did in His sacrificial death on the cross…the act  of redemption in 'buying back' our very heart, soul, and spirit…covering the sin in our lives with His life's blood so that we could be forgiven and restored not to religion, but to a very real and intimate relationship with God and to a life of real and lasting joy. Yada! Yada! Yada!


That’s how much He wants to be known. Let’s not disappoint Him. 


Blessings,
Gay

Today my husband and I celebrate 13 years of marriage. Wow. 13 years. I simply can not believe I am old enough to say that despite my oldest’s constant reminders of my “maturity” LOL. 

13 years of laughs, tears, struggles, victory, patience and perseverance. 13 years of career changes, ministry, moves, and family life. I look back on our life together and I smile. Don’t get me wrong, our life was and is not always rainbows and cinnamon rolls. We have had times where we felt like giving up. Where we felt like giving in. Yet we chose to stay. There are things that we have gone through that we would not wish on anyone, and even still we would not change a thing. 

Every step God has used. Every step God has redeemed. 

I’m a doer. It is very easy and sometimes even typical for me to fill up my (our) day with stuff to accomplish or do. Sometimes it’s as simple as getting chores done or our Goer (RV) ready, or taking the kids to a local fun center or jump place, going over to a friend or family members house.  My love language is acts of service so for me doing the “to-do list” is a way that I receive love, especially if we are doing it together.

But…

My husband and my children’s love languages are so far from accomplishing a “task” together that for them it leaves them exhausted, overworked and maybe even a little unloved at times. I cannot effectively show them love unless I begin speaking and acting in their love languages. 

Back a few years ago, my husband and I were in marriage counseling, (yes, that’s right, it is not a dirty word) and I have never forgotten the words our counselor told us. He asked each of us ‘How much do you love your spouse?’ Of course our automatic reply was ‘With all that I have, my whole heart.’ You know what he told us?!? “No, actually you don’t. You simply love them the most you know how.” 

(Insert mind-blown emoji) That simple statement brought with it so much hope and peace and assurance. I could love more and feel more loved? That was a thing? We had room to not only heal, but to grow even closer still? To know each other more intimately?

Can I let you in on a little secret? Spoiler alert: We could not have done it on our own. We had to make a conscious effort to each seek God in our individual lives and you know what happened? In seeking God we drew closer to each other. All these years later we have found that sometimes we need to slow down. Sometimes we need to stop doing the daily tasks and choose to see each other. More than just unload how our day was after dinner.

We have to ask the hard questions and seek the uncomfortable answers and allow each other the time to do just that.

Please don’t hear what I am not saying, I do not believe that all the familiar is a bad thing. Familiar can be amazing. My husband is my person and as such he knows me like nobody else. He sees my crazy. He sees my sorrow. He sees my joy. And I let him see it because I feel safe with him. And still there is always so much more for us. There is always a deeper level of intimacy to be had, whether with your spouse, your children, or your Heavenly Father. We just have to look for it and then be willing to receive it.

God built us for godly-relationships. We were made to be known, truly known. We were made in the image of a triune God. The same God who knew everyday of our lives before we were ever born. We were never meant to be alone. We don’t have to look very far in the Bible to find that out.

Regardless of where you are at in your walk in life today, whether you are a wife, a mother, a daughter and friend I pray that you take the time to invest. Invest in your relationship with God. Invest in your relationships with the people that God has placed in your life. 


Love you Sis! 

Alexandria


P.S.
Y’all pray for my husband, because under my nice put together face is probably the most obnoxious person you have ever met. 13 YEARS!!!

My husband, Josh, and I have been married for 11 years now. We’ve lost some of that fresh, bubbly, butterfly-inducing romance. We have three kids (8, 6, almost 2) so we are tired all the time. We both work full-time and homeschool our 2 oldest boys. We are both very active in our church, in bible studies, and try hard to stay connected to our friends on a regular basis. 

It’s really normal that the longer you are in a relationship, the more familiar you become with your spouse, the more the infatuation and butterflies fade away. Some of us can kind of resent that shift in the relationship and then begin to pull away from our spouse. We feel hurt that maybe they aren’t quite the same as when we were dating… 


“You used to stay up all night just to talk to me - even when you had to work the next day!”

“You used to snuggle me on the couch all the time!”

“You used to dance with me in the kitchen…”

“You used to tell me how beautiful I am every day…”


Or sometimes, we mistake that the lack of butterflies means we are falling out of love with each other. We start looking for a way out or another person to make us feel that way again. 

The other day, I was kind of noticing how “blah” things have been in our marriage. We are so focused on our kids, on our work, on our ministries, that at the end of the day we are both too tired to connect heart-to-heart most nights of the week. I pulled out my phone for whatever reason and went through my photos. I began to see photo after photo of my husband doing what he loves to do most - be a dad. There were pictures of him holding our baby up near our tree so she could touch snow for the first time, pictures of him playing in the water with our kids at the beach, building sand castles, snuggling sleeping babies, being silly with our boys, the two of us out at a restaurant together, teaching our boys the value of hard work by cleaning gutters in the back yard or power washing the house or raking leaves. It was photo after photo of my man in his happy place.

I found my eyes welling up with tears and my heart filling up with butterflies again. I sent him a text while he was at work to let him know how much I loved him and couldn’t wait for him to get home. The focus of my day shifted from all the things I “had to do” to waiting for my darling man to come home to me. 

I got to thinking the other day in the car about this shift from infatuation to familiarity and the Lord brought to my attention that familiarity is what makes way for intimacy. Intimacy is knowing someone inside and out. It is knowing the secret places of someone’s heart. It is that unique and private relationship with someone - something only the two of you have together. 

You can’t get to true intimacy without going through the familiar. 

Isn’t it that way with the Lord too? We are saved by Jesus and we are on fire, crazy in love, passionate believers, then something happens. It can take some time, but as we become more familiar with God, oftentimes we become a little lazy in our relationship with Him. We let the busyness of work, family, church-life, and other things crowd in His space in our heart and at the end of the day, on most days, we are too tired to even connect heart-to-heart with the Lord. 

This moment is when we need to pull out our spiritual photographs, those snap-shot moments of precious time seeing the Lord doing what he loves most… working in your life. Look at that miracle baby, that restored marriage, that prodigal child coming home, that moment when you had no money for food and a check came in the mail, that time when you were going through crisis and friends showed up to clean your house and bring you a meal, when you couldn’t make rent and someone paid it for you, when you became a gentler spirit through the Word of God, the Sunday morning when it felt like the pastor was speaking directly to your heart, your moment of salvation by Jesus, the quiet moments of loneliness when the Lord came and sat with you, the grief you didn’t have to walk through alone, the friendships that came when you needed them most, the patience and grace shown to you when you didn’t deserve it… 

These are all snap-shot moments in my life. These are all my photos of the Lord. And when I take the time, in my weariness, to sit down and remind myself of these memories, my eyes start welling up with tears, my heart fills with passion, and I want to lean into the Lord more instead of being resentful of our changed relationship or thinking his love for me has faded. 

Familiarizing myself with the Lord is what makes way for more intimacy with Him. 

So, my sweet sister, remind yourself of the goodness of God today. Pull out those snap-shot moments of the Lord working in your life and let your heart fill with passion, your eyes well up, and lean into His heart more today.