I need you...

The culture of the world has shamed us out of our God created need for community, love and intimacy. The beautiful vulnerability of that the phrase, "I need you", has been used to manipulate, or in the hands of the world has been redefined as unnecessary, unacceptable weakness. It has been repackaged as desirous longing, clinging on the hopelessness that people drag around from relationship to relationship when they are empty and broken.

But the need to be with your partner, your friends , your community is none of those things. It is a clear understanding that was God initiated and sewn into the depth of our beings from the beginning of creation.

God says, it is not good for man to be alone. He declared it as an observation, but also a command.

God himself understands what it means to be absent from intimacy and the yearning of that need. We see how carefully and strategically he planned. 42 generations, through the law and the prophets...all pointing toward the presentation of a free gift of love through Jesus and ultimate communion through the indwelling of the Holy spirit.

Jesus says my God my God why have you forsaken me as He experiences the moments of taking on all manner of our sin and being separated from the father. The longing He must have felt was profound enough to feel forsaken. The feeling of being abandoned and deserted. He declared at the time of his teaching, before his crucifixion, I and the father are one. It was He in the beginning in perfect communion with the Father who said; Let us father son and Holy spirit make man in our image. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1: 1,14 NIV

The heart of God aches for us to experience the private, perfect, fulfilling intimacy of friendship, love, relationship, community and most importantly the purest of all...an unbroken fellowship with Him. Eph. 2:4-7 NIV

4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

David says, do anything but don't take your spirit from me. He knew what our heart cries out for in the loneliest of times.. that we need God and we also need people.

When culture convinces us to forsake our need to be in communion, we have bought into a lie. When the pain that people have inflicted us with becomes so profound that we can't bear to share our need with anyone ever again.

We choose loneliness .

We create a narrative unaligned with the Lords assertion in the garden.

We say in our hearts, it is better to be alone than to be hurt .

Honestly I've suffered at the hands of a community I thought loved me, partners and friends. But my suffering never made the ache for intimacy disappear. It only made me lonely and guarded, never healed.

I have on many occasions gotten food poisoning and there was never a time after when I swore off eating ever again. I knew eventually I'd need to eat again. I needed to eat, to feel better and frankly I love food. People pale in comparison to food, but I love people too.

I pray that this becomes a safe space for a community of people who long for intimacy with God and with those that crave the peace of the garden.