Getting Free from Fear of Intimacy

We've been talking about Psalm 139 verse 1:

     O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.

In some of us, that thought brings up tremendous fear. Oh, no, He sees my shame. We feel an overwhelming urge to hide, because we are terrified of intimacy. This is one of Satan's greatest deceptions. It deceives us into avoiding the very thing that would bring us healing, the greatest need of the human heart. It poisons every relationship we have.

We can be free from that fear and actually enjoy intimacy, with God and others, if we want to. But some of us don't want to be free. Our bondage is familiar, we've had it so long it seems normal, and we've developed comfortable coping mechanisms so we can keep ourselves safe. Freedom, on the other hand, belongs to the realm of the scary unknown, and we have to trust someone else to keep us safe (God). Like the Israelites wandering in the desert in Numbers 20 and Exodus 14, some of us prefer the certainty, security, and ease of bondage to the uncertainty, risk, and hard work of freedom.

But if we want it, Jesus died so we could have freedom. Here's two simple steps:

(1) Pray and pray some more. Cry out to God until you have your freedom. Don't stop. Everything worthwhile in the Kingdom starts with prayer.

(2) Get help. From a pastor. From a counselor. From someone you trust. You can't get free by yourself, especially from this. Fear of intimacy is not trusting someone else, not allowing yourself to be close to anyone else. So in fact, when you open up to someone and ask for their help, you don't realize it or feel it, but your 80% free already. Coming to the place of asking for and accepting help is much harder than actually getting free!