Over Exposed
We are a generation that is desperate for intimacy. We're desperate to be understood, to communicate, to belong and to be known. We want connection, and there's nothing wrong with that; in fact, we were created for connection and we were created for intimacy. However, we're going about finding intimacy in the wrong way. We are so desperate for intimacy and to experience belonging to somebody that we've bought the lie that in order to gain intimacy and connection, we should unwrap ourselves and give away our mysteries to everybody that walks by. We're so desperate that we throw out as many lines as we can hoping that if we just connect with enough people, our voids will be filled.
So, we fall in love with the first person we give all of our secrets to, but we're giving our secrets away on the first date to the first person who will listen. All over Tumblr and other social media are people who are pouring out their fears, weaknesses, hopes, and dreams to everybody who will listen. We then feel like we have these deep connections to the hidden faces behind the computer screens because we've given away everything that makes us who we are. While these hectic attempts make us feel "known" and safe and connected, we're actually destroying all chances of experiencing true intimacy in every way (physical/emotional/spiritual/etc).
The very core of intimacy is contrary to exposure on a broad scale. Intimacy in its pure sense must be combined with privacy, or else you're "intimate" with everybody because you've shared yourself with everybody, and that's not true intimacy; it's a cheap imitation of love and care and its stretched so thin that you can see right through it.
In order to experience true intimacy, we must learn how to foster privacy. Think about it this way: if you have a secret and you've never shared it with anybody, the secret seems huge and valuable because only you know it. Then you tell one person, and the weight of that secret diminishes a little because now the information is shared. As time goes on, you tell more and more people that secret, and suddenly it's not even a secret anymore - its just common knowledge. Likewise, the more you share intimate details about yourself, the more they cease to be intimate; eventually, those previously intimate details are also just common knowledge.
True intimacy does involve sharing, yes, but not on the scale that we practice it. I picture intimacy as a "going deeper" process, meaning that as intimacy grows between myself and another person we sink downward into a hidden place where we know each other in deeper and deeper ways. In this sense, intimacy creates a barrier between the closeness that you share and the rest of the world. This intimacy is protected - there's a sacredness about it that leaves you breathless. However, when intimacy isn't protected, it creates a shallow relationship. The more you share, the less of yourself you seem to have and suddenly you're exposed. The more people this process is repeated with, the emptier you're left. You've stretched yourself too thin and you've left pieces of yourself with too many people. Intimacy can't exist between you and the masses; it's a partnership that just doesn't work.
A pastor once explained adultery to me as more than just sex outside of marriage. He said that adultery is the knowing of information that you don't have the right to know. For example, it could mean that you know a person's private thoughts, desires, weaknesses, body, etc. Adultery is an invasion of privacy and an understanding of another person that shouldn't be available to you. In other words, it's being over exposed or over exposing another person. How ironic then, that in our very quest for intimacy, we're chasing down the exposure that comes with adultery instead - and being over exposed is the destruction of intimacy (which is one reason why adultery in any form is so dangerous). I've heard it said that the devil wants to strip us down, and Jesus wants to cover us up; Satan wants us exposed and humiliated, but Jesus wants us clothed in righteousness and dignity. Although exposure was the devil's plan, we've bought into it and we've begin to participate in it.
So, we fall in love with the first person we give all of our secrets to, but we're giving our secrets away on the first date to the first person who will listen. All over Tumblr and other social media are people who are pouring out their fears, weaknesses, hopes, and dreams to everybody who will listen. We then feel like we have these deep connections to the hidden faces behind the computer screens because we've given away everything that makes us who we are. While these hectic attempts make us feel "known" and safe and connected, we're actually destroying all chances of experiencing true intimacy in every way (physical/emotional/spiritual/etc).
The very core of intimacy is contrary to exposure on a broad scale. Intimacy in its pure sense must be combined with privacy, or else you're "intimate" with everybody because you've shared yourself with everybody, and that's not true intimacy; it's a cheap imitation of love and care and its stretched so thin that you can see right through it.
In order to experience true intimacy, we must learn how to foster privacy. Think about it this way: if you have a secret and you've never shared it with anybody, the secret seems huge and valuable because only you know it. Then you tell one person, and the weight of that secret diminishes a little because now the information is shared. As time goes on, you tell more and more people that secret, and suddenly it's not even a secret anymore - its just common knowledge. Likewise, the more you share intimate details about yourself, the more they cease to be intimate; eventually, those previously intimate details are also just common knowledge.
True intimacy does involve sharing, yes, but not on the scale that we practice it. I picture intimacy as a "going deeper" process, meaning that as intimacy grows between myself and another person we sink downward into a hidden place where we know each other in deeper and deeper ways. In this sense, intimacy creates a barrier between the closeness that you share and the rest of the world. This intimacy is protected - there's a sacredness about it that leaves you breathless. However, when intimacy isn't protected, it creates a shallow relationship. The more you share, the less of yourself you seem to have and suddenly you're exposed. The more people this process is repeated with, the emptier you're left. You've stretched yourself too thin and you've left pieces of yourself with too many people. Intimacy can't exist between you and the masses; it's a partnership that just doesn't work.
A pastor once explained adultery to me as more than just sex outside of marriage. He said that adultery is the knowing of information that you don't have the right to know. For example, it could mean that you know a person's private thoughts, desires, weaknesses, body, etc. Adultery is an invasion of privacy and an understanding of another person that shouldn't be available to you. In other words, it's being over exposed or over exposing another person. How ironic then, that in our very quest for intimacy, we're chasing down the exposure that comes with adultery instead - and being over exposed is the destruction of intimacy (which is one reason why adultery in any form is so dangerous). I've heard it said that the devil wants to strip us down, and Jesus wants to cover us up; Satan wants us exposed and humiliated, but Jesus wants us clothed in righteousness and dignity. Although exposure was the devil's plan, we've bought into it and we've begin to participate in it.
The pursuit of intimacy and the process of developing it may be a lonely journey, but if we allow desperation to overtake us and we rush to find "someone," we'll cheat ourselves of reaching the place that we're truly desiring to go.
We need to reclaim privacy. We need to learn that our hearts and minds and bodies are valuable to Jesus. We have to understand that not everybody is meant to "know" us in every way. In fact, there are ways that no person could ever know us in. But because we don't understand that only Jesus can and should understand us in every depth possible, we try to look for other people to understand us in that impossibly intimate way. We feel this aching need to be known and understood, and the cry of it is so loud and desperate and deep that we run to every possible avenue available to attempt to satisfy that need. We ignore the One who we can experience the deepest, most personal and beautiful intimacy with, and instead we go looking for cheap substitutes that can never fulfill the void. And yes, I think one of this generation's biggest needs is the need for true, protected, soul reaching intimacy - and we're just not going to find it anywhere else besides the heart of Jesus.
The biggest trick of the enemy is that he tells us we have to expose ourselves to the world to be known, while Jesus is whispering that He knows every depth of our hearts and that He wants to guard those precious depths. Coverage produces intimacy, not exposure. Instead of going to everybody who will listen but can't help, run to the One who knows you, and who loves what He knows about you. You are safe, and you are worth far too much to go throwing all of who you are at every person who walks by.
"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." (Matthew 7:6)
"You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, You Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." (Psalm 139:1-6)
We need to reclaim privacy. We need to learn that our hearts and minds and bodies are valuable to Jesus. We have to understand that not everybody is meant to "know" us in every way. In fact, there are ways that no person could ever know us in. But because we don't understand that only Jesus can and should understand us in every depth possible, we try to look for other people to understand us in that impossibly intimate way. We feel this aching need to be known and understood, and the cry of it is so loud and desperate and deep that we run to every possible avenue available to attempt to satisfy that need. We ignore the One who we can experience the deepest, most personal and beautiful intimacy with, and instead we go looking for cheap substitutes that can never fulfill the void. And yes, I think one of this generation's biggest needs is the need for true, protected, soul reaching intimacy - and we're just not going to find it anywhere else besides the heart of Jesus.
The biggest trick of the enemy is that he tells us we have to expose ourselves to the world to be known, while Jesus is whispering that He knows every depth of our hearts and that He wants to guard those precious depths. Coverage produces intimacy, not exposure. Instead of going to everybody who will listen but can't help, run to the One who knows you, and who loves what He knows about you. You are safe, and you are worth far too much to go throwing all of who you are at every person who walks by.
"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." (Matthew 7:6)
"You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, You Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." (Psalm 139:1-6)
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