Intimacy with Jesus

Intimacy shouldn’t feel like a test you can fail. We open a gentler way to relate to Jesus—one built on safety, honesty, and trust—so that even those carrying unwanted sexual desires, betrayal, trauma, or unanswered prayers can step toward connection without pressure or performance. Rather than chasing a perfect quiet time, we explore how everyday moments become holy ground: the clink of dishes, a commute’s quiet, the light on autumn leaves. When we treat intimacy as presence instead of a project, our nervous systems can exhale and our desire has room to grow.

We share language that removes shame and invites realism: Can I be honest with you, Lord? Do I feel safe with you, Lord? Can I trust you, God? That pause between question and answer matters. Scripture reframes God’s posture—the Lord who sees, the face that shines, Jesus, gentle and lowly—and helps us imagine a relationship that meets us where we actually are. We talk about cultivating a listening heart, the biblical picture of wisdom that stays connected moment by moment, and we borrow lived practices from Brother Lawrence to a modern “Experiencing God” approach that treats the day like an ocean you can hear, watch, or dive into.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs gentleness today, and leave a review to help others find these conversations.

Resources from this episode:

• Practice the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
• John Eldredge - The One Minute Pause App

Contact us today: If you have a question, comment, or need help, email us at info@regenerationministries.org

Free Resources for you!

👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

Transcript

New Table, New Topic

SPEAKER_00 0:22

We're at the table, it's official.

SPEAKER_05 0:25

It's a new setup.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

We can all look at each other much easier. It's so crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 0:30

Although I did like the couch, but this is nice too.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Intimacy with Jesus. This is quite a topic. And my goodness, um, I've been praying for our words to be a blessing, but also for the women listening, that they would receive this invitation um really clearly to just understand, even or maybe bust through some of the ideas that they have about intimacy with Jesus and gain a different understanding or maybe a new approach. Um, just in hearing our voices as we talk about it for ourselves and for our clients and um our experiences. That sounds great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Let's jump in.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Let's jump in. So, you know, as we jump in, intimacy right away can be a triggering word. And I think we need to acknowledge that. Um, like immediately, my heart feels a little catch, like there's a little snag for women who've been betrayed. The intimacy feels like a bad word almost, maybe. Or for women who are struggling with unwanted sexual behaviors, that intimacy might be something they're not allowed. Um, or trauma survivors, the same thing. Um, intimacy is a big word.

SPEAKER_05 1:49

Boy, as you say that, it's it's tender. And we want everyone who's listening to to know we we feel it too.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah, we definitely do that because it can it can be very scary, especially since um the world has twisted what intimacy really means, and it's so much bigger than just sex. And unfortunately, it has been drilled down and boiled down to just having sexual encounters with someone um when Jesus intends it to be so much bigger than that. So much safer than that.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yes, oh safety. Safety is a big key for intimacy.

SPEAKER_05 2:35

It's necessary.

Safety, Honesty, Trust As The Foundation

SPEAKER_00 2:38

It's an absolute building building block and trust.

SPEAKER_05 2:41

Yes, and honesty at the base of that, of the foundation of intimacy is honesty and safety and trust.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

So honesty, safety, trust. So good questions as we even start to explore this topic are can I be honest with you, Lord? Do I feel safe with you, Lord? Can I trust you, God? And the pause there is intentional also, right? There's a stillness that's necessary to hear the answer from yourself.

SPEAKER_05 3:21

And permission to ask it.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

And know that those are questions that Jesus isn't afraid of, right? Like he's not going, you have to believe I'm, you know, I'm trustworthy. Um, he wants you to step into that and experience him in such a way where you know he's trustworthy. Uh, he's not gonna force himself onto you in any kind of way. Um, and so, and he's okay with that. He's okay with if you've got to take a baby step toward what that means. He's okay with that.

SPEAKER_05 3:56

And if you have to stay in the honest place for a long time with him, if there's been a lot of hurt in your relationships, there's been a lot of hurt in prayers not answered, that place of honesty may take a lot longer to stay there.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Yeah. I think especially if you think that God wasn't for you in what you whatever you've experienced, you might think, well, how can I trust intimacy with God when He didn't help me in this situation or He allowed this particular situation to take place? Uh you might not even feel like He's really trustworthy, but yet God loves you enough to go, I understand that, and and I can wait.

SPEAKER_05 4:52

And Kyle, I love the the way that um friendship can begin to rebuild that when you have a friendship with somebody and you're honest, and they respect and listen to your honesty and live out a safe relationship with you. And that can mirror God.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So I almost feel like we could take a temperature check for our listeners because for myself, like I feel my gut really tight. I I feel myself clenching my jaw. So if you're doing that right now, just take a breath and just relax. Um soften your hands and stretch out your feet. Um, you're in a safe place. Um, you're learning, you're growing, we're learning, we're growing. Um, and the beautiful, powerful, amazing thing about intimacy is that it just keeps growing. Um, so for those women who are listening who feel like, oh, I got intimacy with Jesus, well, maybe we want to challenge some things and see what else there might be beyond the journal and the cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yes, nice Instagram photo.

Friendship As A Mirror Of God

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yes, yes. And so we're here for all of that because umce you have uh the softened posture and you're you can acknowledge I love you, Lord, but I don't entirely trust you yet. Um, and that can be your beginning statement. That is a powerfully intimate thing to be able to say out loud, to declare.

SPEAKER_05 6:35

Are you thinking of a verse there?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

I'm thinking of a lot of them. Um, because something that I know for myself is I I carried this veil of shame that was almost more like a felt, thick felt cloth, not just some thin veil of shame for so many years. And I was like, I trust you, Lamb, you know, you're so covered by it. Um, and I I want to see you, but I don't know that I want you to see me, um, type of thinking. But when you look at number six, and may the Lord bless you and keep you, may his face shine on you. He wants to face you. Um, we hear that the Lord is the God who sees, the God who hears, that he offers Elijah a snack, that he um steps towards people, that he prepares a banquet. This is a very sensual, very present, persistent, patient God.

Somatic Safety And Starting Small

SPEAKER_01 7:36

And I even like the description that Jesus gives of himself um in this is Matthew 29. He says, I am gentle and lowly in heart. So he postures himself in a way that if you've ever been in a situation where you have been overpowered by someone and you feel protect, you want to protect yourself with respect to intimacy. Um, Jesus is saying, I'm gentle and I'm lowly. Um if you just feel like there isn't space for you to be able to trust God going forward with the healing of your marriage. Um, but Jesus says, I'm gentle and I'm lowly, lowly in heart. Uh and so he wants to posture himself in a way that you can receive him without feeling threatened.

SPEAKER_05 8:35

Well, thanks for adding that, Kyle. I felt I felt like my shoulders kind of drop a little bit and settle into that part of Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 8:50

There's an invitation to linger in intimacy.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

It's not about knowing something. Like we we live in an age of, I mean, hello, what we're doing right now is listening to podcasts and taking notes and gaining knowledge and going to workshops and that sort of thing. But this is this is such a reflection of our God that He wants a relationship with us. And relationships take work.

Scripture And The God Who Sees

SPEAKER_05 9:16

That reminds me um of something that I've been in my own desire to become more intimate with God, is doing this um kind of quiet uh experiential app called Experiencing God. And I have really appreciated the the time to sit and try to experience God in quiet and not just um I and actually an example in the um app, it gives there's different ways to like there's different ways to experience the ocean. There's different ways to experience God. Like the ocean, you may experience it by hearing it, laying in your bed at night with the window open and hearing the waves. There is stare, you know, standing at the ocean or a lake and seeing the glimmer of sunlight on the ocean. And that is seeing God. And then there may be actually diving into the ocean and experiencing the water, the salt, the the cold, the and that's experiencing God. And I just love that invitation of you know, it it maybe for me it is a picture of of intimacy with God, hearing him, seeing him, experiencing him.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, it begs the question right that we talked about a little earlier is uh intimacy with Jesus, is it just something that we do, or is it is it that we experience someone? Because I, you know, it's easy, like you said, you can get the journal, the Bible, you have your little cup of coffee, and and you limit your experience to that moment. Um, but what if you could be like Brother Lawrence, who is a gentleman who wanted to be a monk, and he was a lay brother in a monastery who decided that he was gonna experience God in everything that he did, washing the dishes, cleaning the floor, and thus he constantly made himself aware of the presence of God. Because the thing is, you're never out of his presence. Never. And so to think that we have to create this special kind of moment to experience him limits the way we can encounter him.

Gentle And Lowly: Posture Of Jesus

SPEAKER_05 11:54

And if y'all don't mind, I'm gonna pull up my phone. Um, and I want to read something because um Jesus um here we go um from uh another big brother, a French mystic, John Guillain, uh assures us that the presence um the excuse me I'll pause here. I found it easy to obtain the presence of God. He desires to be more present to us than we desire to seek him. He desires to give himself to us far more readily than we desire to receive him. So if we are ex if we uh show up at some of these regular tasks of the dishes or doing this, and we are we're expecting that Jesus is actually looking for us, it makes me want to find him.

Linger Beyond Knowledge

SPEAKER_01 12:58

That's so good. That's so good. Yeah, and and you can you can always posture yourself, like you don't have to stop everything just to do it like like you said, if you're washing the districts, you can posture yourself to even just take a minute and look around and notice um the presence of God in whatever it is that's happening. You know, you can maybe notice you get to look out the window and see a beautiful sun, bright sunshiny day, or changing of the leaves, the color of the leaves, or something. There's always spaces to be able to stop and pause. And that the Lord desires this like constant communion. I love this um from when Solomon asked God for wisdom, and you'll see it listed a couple different ways. You might see wisdom, you might see discerning heart, understanding heart. Um, but a better literal translation is to give your servant a listening heart. Um, the Hebrew word Shema from hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, right? Hear to listen. And so that's very different from just kind of dropping wisdom on you and walking away. But it's like there's this constant connection with God. And what if your part of it that might feel the safest for you is to go, okay, you know what, God, like I want to have a listening heart first. I want to start to establish this constant communication with you that happens when I'm in the car, when I'm with the kids and they're running all over the place, or if I'm feeling lonely and by myself, um, I can still have this constant connection to you at all times.

SPEAKER_05 15:02

Excuse me, and have a listening ear that he might might say, I'm here for you. I love you. One step at a time. Don't give up. I love you.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

It is such a sensory experience to be intimate with God. And so I I feel like like notice what you notice. Um if you're somebody who stands at the edge of the ocean and loves to just look and see the glitter of the sun hitting the water, then okay, well, then you're you're a watcher. So then the next step might be, Lord, help me see you. I want to see you in the dishes. I want to see you on my way to work. I want to see you in my quiet time. I want to see you in the changing of the seasons. Um, show me more of you. Um, and my goodness, if our God is waiting on us like this to come towards us, waiting for us to say, come on in. Um, how sweet of him to wait so patiently for us. And then, or if you notice you're a listener, I love to hear the waves crashing. Okay, well, Lord, tune my ears to hear more of your word, tune my ears to hear more of your voice, and notice what you notice. Is it like a do you feel warm and fuzzy inside? Is there like a smile across your face? Do you feel um energized? Notice what you notice. It's so important.

Experiencing God Like The Ocean

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah, I think sometimes we eliminate the sensory part. Um, because what happens, think about what happens to you when maybe you do you read that verse and you go, whoa, like that thing just came alive. And really, just what are you even noticing in your own body? Um might that sense or what you're feeling in your body just be um just an expression of the Holy Spirit within you, um rejoicing with you, and that you caught that, you received it, you internalized it, and it gave you this full body sensation. Um and I know there might be some people who go, like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about in terms of experiencing God in that way. And as we've been saying before, give the Lord the opportunity to ask and then start to notice what you notice.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Well, and I can get carried away on like the skippy happy stuff, but also in our grief, the way that Jesus met both Martha and Mary in their grief very differently. And he he waited, you know, uh Jesus, the teacher's waiting to be with you. Um, the way he came to them in their grief um just is such an illustration of his presence, but also his pacing with us is so gentle and so kind that even in our grief, he still wants to be so close. And just imagine, right?

Practicing Presence In Everyday Tasks

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Like we are indwelt by the Trinity, right? The full expression of God. And so when you experience grief and the depth to which you feel it, I I truly believe that part of what you're experiencing also is the grief that's being shared by the Lord within you. That I don't know apart from that, if we can feel that kind of depth of grief. Um and if Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief like he knows, or the sorrow he felt when he found out Lazarus died. Right. So there's I think a joining together, and and maybe even to recognize that is wow, that's an intimate moment that Jesus is feeling the same depth of grief that you feel when you've been hurt, when something hasn't gone your way, when you've had a significant loss. Like it's not just you by yourself that you are also being joined by the Trinity in that grief.

SPEAKER_05 19:41

And that could be in that that it could be, that is intimacy with Jesus. So maybe it's not this lofty, big you know, experience I have to get to. It's right there in my tears.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Yeah. What's that verse of um looks I'm doing something new? Yeah. I just feel like yeah, it's one of those like bids for intimacy that are in human relationships, like, oh, look at this picture I found, or watch this video with me that's so funny, or taste this food that I have. Um, I feel like that verse in Isaiah is such a bid for intimacy from the Lord. Like, here, come come beside me and see what I'm doing. This is exciting, or this is good, or this is different, and but be beside me. Um, I love that. And a bid for intimacy is something that we talk about in marriages and friendships and relationships. Um, that is not exclusive of our God. Right. He just wows me sometimes, and it is like jaw-dropping, like what looking around behind me. Anybody else seeing this? Anybody else hearing this? This is he really just talking to me, or is he really just giving this to me? And I I at this point I'm greedy for it. Um, I want more.

Expecting A God Who Seeks Us

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah. And that's I think our hope for everybody listening is that you get to this place where you really do say, I do want that. And maybe I can expand what I've already experienced, or maybe I've never experienced this before, but I do want that. Um, and I think the Lord is going, and I want to give it to you, right? He doesn't want to withhold any of this from any of us.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Um, for anybody watching, I don't know if you saw my face, I think I was getting lost in listening for my own self. But I feel um, I feel like we we've painted uh a beautiful picture of what intimacy with Jesus can be and and um can be. I'll just leave it at that. So why don't we leave our listeners with some either a recap or some practicals? Um so a recap, like from the start, we talked about to even begin this walk towards intimacy um requires some um self reflection of do I feel safe with you, Lord? Can I trust you? Um, can I be honest with you? And and and sitting with it for a moment, sitting with those answers and being okay with the pace of maybe. I need to sit with the honesty or the trust. What else?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Uh having your heart open for what God wants. Like it's as simple as saying, Jesus, I really want to know what true intimacy with you is like. Right? We've experienced all the false stuff, but what truly does it mean? Help me move beyond what I have never experienced, or expanding what, you know, building upon what I've already experienced.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

And open my eyes, open my ears, open my heart to you again.

Cultivating A Listening Heart

SPEAKER_00 23:08

And that's it. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yes, nice to be together.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Yes.