Intimacy From the Depths

We've probably spent more hours under this roof together than we have probably together at home, maybe even since like our honeymoon.

Just because of the pandemic. I mean, we've just been together a lot. But what we've realized is that probably sometime mid summer, I think we both kind of realized all this togetherness does not equal oneness. Hours upon hours together does not mean we're connecting deeply. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most.

I'm Ann Wilson and I'm Dave Wilson and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So we're back on the boat in the Caribbean. Yeah, we are.

Well, sort of. Virtual. It's the Love Like You Mean It virtual cruise. We get to listen to a message from our president, David Robbins, and his wife, Meg, which was given on, again, it was a virtual cruise.

We didn't get to go out on a boat because of Covid, but we get to sit in our homes and thousands of couples did this. It actually ended up being a great cruise. Yeah, it was really fun.

Yeah, it was really fun. And so we have messages that were given virtually. And by the way, we are going on a boat next year, 2022, February 6th to the 13th. We will be on the water. We want you to join us. And if you sign up now before June 28th, you get a great deal.

So I would say sign up immediately. That thing will sell out. Go to familylifetoday.com and you'll be able to see some of the promotions we have going on.

Yeah, it's pretty good stuff. So today we get to listen to David and Meg talk about going deeper, deep. Yeah, it really applies to the year we've gone through. You would think that being under one roof and probably spending more time together than most of us have spent together as a couple, we would just have the best marriages right now. But they talk about how it can be really hard to go really deep intimately and be fully known in our own homes.

Yeah, so here's David and Meg. Welcome to our home. I mean, we so wish we were together in person and sailing the seas. But if we can't, then we might as well come a little closer, come into the most intimate place of the Robins. And that is our home.

And so we are so thankful to be with you and get to share tonight with you. And it actually reminds us yesterday, the stop in Italy reminds us of the Valentine's we actually spent. We lived in Italy for a year, way before we had kids and we spent a Valentine's at Cinque Terre. We did. We were in one of those little homes hanging off the cliff and it actually was super affordable at the time.

At least I have no clue now. This was almost 20 years ago, but one of our favorite spots for sure. But you know, we look back at Italy and it's such a fond memory place, a place that we really feel like we became a team and we look back and we go, man, God did so many cool things in our lives. But then when you start listing how that actually happened, it was a pretty wilderness time in some ways. There were some really hard things we had to process. There was beauty and getting to experience life in a different country and things the way we look back on it and how God moved. But man, there was a lot of depravity and a lot of pain that surfaced. We had a miscarriage of our first born there. It was a pretty traumatic experience to say the least.

The ministry really became kind of duty for me for a season there. And I had to work through that with the Lord of God, are you calling me to this? And this is hard and I don't feel like my heart's fully in it. And so it's amazing that we went into layers of our relationship with the Lord, layers of deeper intimacy with one another in Italy and it was hard. But we look back at it and go, man, it was so worth it. I can't imagine our relationship without that season. It was a really important season in our lives. And it's fascinating how as we go into deeper layers of intimacy together, it's hard, but it's always worth it.

It's true. I think in some way we've also experienced that this year that sometimes the things that we experienced, depravity and hurt and hard things together, those things also have beautiful things that come from it. And I think when we think about this last year, we've probably spent more hours under this roof together than we have probably together at home, maybe even since like our honeymoon, just because of the pandemic. I mean, we've just been together a lot, but what we've realized is that probably sometime mid summer, I think we both kind of realized all this togetherness does not equal oneness. Hours upon hours together does not mean we're connecting deeply. And honestly, I think if anything, if when we got really honest about how we were doing mid summer, it's like, okay, after several months of this, we're really not connected. We're kind of drifting. We're kind of emotionally on two totally separate islands.

And what does it look like to dig in and invite you in and experience that emotional connectedness that we long for and that we know we typically love and operate that way, but hours together into the same room, especially with our kids around all the time, when this doesn't just happen, we talk about that a lot. You know, you have to fight for it. And you have to pursue it. And it reminds us there was a moment where we were really getting to that place of going, this isn't okay. And we don't want to settle for this.

And man, there's this pandemics keep continuing and we got to address this. And we were like, it's the onion again, which means nothing to you probably. But for us, we remember joining staff and going through a seminary class and this analogy of the, of this onion, the seminary professor told was like, that is growing closer to God and growing closer to one another. It's such a beautiful analogy. And you know, there's three different types of loves. There's phileo love, which is brotherly love, or, you know, that emotional connection love. There's Eros love, which is passionate and speaking of that honeymoon type of love. And then there's agape love, which is unconditional love. Jesus type love comes from above, unable to do on our own. And if our lives are like an onion, we get through layers in each other's lives where we're, we're, you know, going through the layers of the onion of each, each one of those lives.

And there's that easy connection and phileo, and then there's the Eros and the passion. And then you hit a layer and you hit those layers that you go, Oh, this, the way we're operating, isn't going to get us through this layer. This layer requires agape, supernatural Jesus inspired love in order to love through. And we were at one of those layers, you know, our lives as they keep growing you know, God knows the depths of our hearts, but we don't. And we, we keep growing ourselves and we keep growing as a couple. And I keep learning more about Meg and we hit these, these different layers in both of our lives.

And we're like, okay, this is the onion. This is a moment where it's going to require us to re-surrender to the Lord and really you know, trust him again with agape type love. And the beautiful thing that we keep finding that we are getting those first fruits of again, is that when you go through those layers that require agape love on the other side of it is deeper emotional connection and phileo love deeper Eros you know, type of love.

Yeah, because really we long for that deep connection. We long for it from the Lord and we long for it with each other, just a soul level connection that we cannot have without the Lord really. And one of my favorite quotes on this is Tim Keller. He says this, to be loved, but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear, but to be fully known and truly loved is well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us. You know, we need the courage to go deeper into the unknown parts of our lives. I mean, greater intimacy in marriage and greater intimacy with the Lord. They go hand in hand and then it takes courage to peel back the layers and let someone in and also love into those layers, love through those layers, just like you were talking about with the onion. So we want to talk about three ways that we can actually pursue that, that when we hit those layers in our life, which I'm sure you've hit some during this past year, as we look at this Valentine's day that is unique and you go, I don't know where you're celebrating.

Likely it's in your home and you're not out doing something fancy. You're here with us. All right, how do we pursue this? How do we pursue these deeper types of intimacy with the Lord and with one another? The first one is, and the first pathway would be embrace being fully loved and fully known by God in deeper ways. It is entering the deeper parts of your own story with the Lord. Psalm 139 is one of those verses that, you know, David goes on and on of the security we have in us being fully known by the Lord. He hems us in behind him before he knows our, our deepest parts of our lives.

You know, we were created in our, in our mother's womb. He knits us in that place. His thoughts are too vast for us. And then as he reflects on all those things, he gets to the end of that Psalm and then verse 23 Psalm 139 he says, search me O God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there's any grievous ways in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. And out of that security of knowing God, you know everything already, you know fully everything about Meg, you know fully everything about me out of that place of you knowing all of that. Okay, Lord, in that security, knowing you love me, search me. I offer myself up to you a new whatever's happening in my lives of what I want to offer myself up to you. Surrender and go into those deeper places with you so that you can lead me in the way of everlasting. We've been reading this year a really our favorite book of 2020 which is gentle and lowly by Dane Ortlund and he quotes lots of Puritans in through the out the book and he quotes John Bunyan really and John Bunyan's really talking about how we tend to deflect Christ assurances and he says we often say no wait God you don't understand I've really messed up in all kinds of ways and Christ responds I know but but you but you know you know most of it sure certainly more than others see but there's there's perversity down inside of me that is hidden from everyone and Christ says I know it all and we respond well the thing is it isn't just my past it's my presence too and Christ says I understand but I don't know if if I can break free of all this anytime soon and Jesus responds that's the only kind of person I'm here to help the burden is heavy and heavier all the time and Jesus responds then let me carry it it's too much for me and Christ responds not for me you don't get it my offenses aren't directed toward others they're against you then I'm the only one most suited to forgive you but the more of the ugliness in me you discover the sooner you're gonna get fed up with me and Christ responds whoever comes to me I will never cast out and Bunyan concludes this promise was provided to answer all objections and it does answer them yeah it's a rock-solid promise this is the gospel I mean I love that it's so beautiful and it reminds me of Romans 8 38 Romans 8 38 for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord that isn't a ginormous promise that nothing no sin in my own heart no disappointment no fears no doubts and all those things just listen nothing can separate us from the love of Christ I personally experienced this it was several times certainly in our lives but I was thinking back to when we lost two young nieces to a degenerative brain disease several years ago kind of over the course of a few years and it was hard it was really painful I if I'm really honest I experienced a lot of just questioning is God really who I thought he was I grew up in a strong Christian home I believed in the Lord from a young age and I never really struggled with doubt and I started to feel and sense that doubt was creeping in and God didn't seem as good and kind as and loving as I had known him to be for the rest of my life and honestly I started to feel a lot of shame and guilt around that and I had a hard time being honest with the Lord being honest with David about it and the Lord just sort of slowly wooed me in and helped I started to realize okay it's okay to bring this to the Lord to open this up to him and he's already there he already knows it he already sees it but the more that I open my heart up and take that to him and ask him the hard questions and wrestle with that openly with the Lord the more intimacy I experienced with him I experienced that deep truth of being fully known him seeing all that mess that I was struggling with and wrestling through and yet knowing and experiencing that he fully loved me in it and that the intimacy came as I peel back the layers of my heart and it's so tricky with the Lord because we know he already knows it he's already there and yet he invites us to let him in even more and as I experienced that I did experience more oneness with the Lord and if I'm truly honest even through that process I think we started to experience more intimacy because I was able to say hey I'm struggling with this and I was it was hard to admit that at first because I've never had doubt I'm not supposed to have doubts and yet it was an opportunity for me to experience the Lord more and intimacy with him and then also began to crack that door open for greater oneness between us. Yeah I mean that that leads to our second point is that if we're going to pursue deeper and deeper layers of intimacy with one another it first starts with letting going into those places with the Lord and as we do there is that next step of faith of how much do I let in my spouse you know we all kind of have those decisions to make of to what extent and I mean we delight in being fully known and fully loved we say with our mouth but as life goes on as we get in ruts as something surprises us like doubts that may surface in our lives do we keep going in and being fully known with our spouses and full experience being fully loved and the ways that Christ empowers us to be in those deeper places and the second point is simple but yet it's true we have to invite our spouses into those fully known and fully loved layers God already fully knows them and loves them and we invite our spouses into those places to disclose the deeper unknown places that are becoming known so that we can grow together and so that intimacy continues to cultivate Ephesians four two and three says be completely humble and gentle be patient bearing with one another in love make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace and implied in a marriage we are wired to bear with one another in love in agape love in the hard layers in our lives we are made to to have unity in the spirit the same spirit that's in mag the same spirit that's in me we are wired in order to to have intimacy with the same spirit so that there would be a bond of peace and peace doesn't mean there's not tumultuous things happening in our lives but there is the peace of being having God's presence with us and experience that in that together yeah honestly our when oneness grows as we invite the other person and even more and I think you know it's kind of coming to terms with the obvious that David cannot read my mind and when I was going through that and wrestling with those things he can't read my mind and he can't read my heart the Lord certainly can but he can't and so our oneness you know I think even the summer reflecting back to how we were drifting apart a little bit it's because even though I think because we were together all the time I started to assume well he should know that I'm irritated by that or he should know that I want him to do this I will never forget when we were getting married my older brother who was already married at the time he was like my one piece of advice is if you want David to do something you need to tell him you know if you're sitting there and you've just cooked dinner and you would like for him to do the dishes and he says hey do you want me to do the dishes don't say no say yes because he doesn't know what you want him to say and it was kind of revolutionary it seems so simple but it's so true I think sometimes we assume that he's gonna know this about me because we're here we're together we're so close and we are one but yet that doesn't equal knowing everything without me saying it and so I think it's a choice just like I have to say if I want him to do the dishes I've got to tell him if I'm sad or I'm hurting or I'm feeling lonely or disappointed or joyful and excited about something it's learning to invite him in by taking that risk and taking the walls of my heart down and letting him see what's really going on yeah through this year and through the realities of the pandemic I realized in a new and kind of deeper way how when I'm under stress how hard I close up some and I just start functioning through life and it makes it harder for me to ask for help and we all have our own tendencies some of us emotionally vomit and you're like wait how do I present this well and invite my spouse in in a healthy way for me over this last year it really was around I just started skimming through life and am I really going to deeper places do I make space for Meg and I to go to those deeper places together do I invite her into the places and for me as I looked into it and dug into this layer of what's going on and why is this drift toward isolation happening it was part self-reliance where under stress mode I just get really self-reliant in a really unhealthy way sometimes the other side of it was a narrative I was exploring you know going in my head going I don't want to add more stress to Meg my goodness she's having to teach the kids and get thrown into that scenario and she's she's not done that and and so you know we were moving there were so many things going on I don't want to burden her more but by making that small decision of I'm not going to invite her in to the places that I was really struggling and anxious thoughts were overwhelming it did lead to that separation where we we kind of had to have ongoing moments not just one huge moment there was kind of a moment where we go hey this sitting right how did we get here oh yeah pandemic but let just don't excuse it let's how do we pursue one another and in that as I begin to declare need you know it's one thing to be someone that knows how to tell the story going on in your life it's another thing to for Meg to go so what do you need and I go oh my goodness I don't I don't like it when you ask that question you know like it's one thing to be able to articulate man I'm struggling this way and here's what I'm anxious about but and then she would ask now what do you need and it goes back to you as a spouse asking that question all of a sudden do I even know okay yeah I need you to to help me in this way or I need time away in order to process with the Lord whatever those things are we get to in intimacy grow together in that place but we've got to let we've got to choose to let our spouses in which is so simple and it's like one-on-one stuff but as life takes its course which this year certainly life has taken its course grace allows us to invite our spouses in without having shame and go into those places and invite them into those places so true I was just thinking about how the first point of being fully known and fully loved by the Lord really helps us believe and be rooted in that grace that allows us to invite our spouses in and then the third thing is that we would pursue our spouse to fully know them and lavish them with love and I think so the second one is more about inviting your spouse on and the third one is taking active steps to pursue the heart of your spouse it's entering into the deeper spaces of your spouse's heart and life and pursuing into those places and because of what Christ has done and because of his great lavish love for us this is possible and I love there's so many verses on God's love for us and how he calls us to love one another but I'm going to quickly read through a few John 13 34 says a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you you also are to love one another with that lavish love John 15 12 this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you John 15 17 these things I command you so that you will love one another in first John 4 11 beloved if God so loved us we also ought to love one another and the last verse first John 3 11 for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another and the greatest thing about this is that not only does Jesus model so perfectly for us and can we experience that oneness with him but he also empowers us to do it he doesn't just tell us to love and hope that we're going to do it on our own because I don't know about you but I feel miserably when I'm trying to love David on my own and show him all the things that he needs and he's wired to to have but the Lord gives us the Holy Spirit and through him we can love in a way that frees us up to be kind when we're when we're not able to on our own to show him kindness and love and peace and all of those things and that to me is just I'm so grateful and it's the only way that I think we can experience oneness the way that God designs us to yeah God designs us to love one another like he loved us and that's only possible by us not being self-reliant to try harder but us surrendering and getting on our knees and going God I need your help to be able to love like you love and pursue Meg being fully known and fully loved and experiencing that from me he's the only one that truly fully knows every part of me and fully loves her with perfect love but yet I get to pursue her by the power of the Holy Spirit and give her glimpses of God's love in a tangible way us together go into those places but often it seems like we want the fruit of companionship without the demands of genuine intimacy which takes us back to the onion and where we started we get to those layers we go oh man this is hard sometimes we don't even realize we're at that hard level we're just kind of bumping up against it but when we realize it like we did this past summer we go okay this takes agape love layers this takes dependence upon his spirit to be able to enter in together this takes risk this takes courage and and some steps of faith to to know how we're loved first point to be able to open ourselves up again and know okay God you fully lovely and know me I invite you into the deeper places help me go deeper through this layer but then secondly to be able to invite someone else in and then thirdly to be able to pursue being fully known and fully loved that's what we get to do know ourselves more invite other our spouse in and then pursue our spouse ourselves with a Holy Spirit divine type of power and love and I just would say as we as we begin to close remember this and remember the power of the analogy of the onion the great thing is as you go through those agape layers better arrows is on the other side because that deep emotional and spiritual connection happens man you begin to unlock something and deeper levels of arrows intimacy that comes along with deeper levels of spiritual and emotional connection it's true very true and one last thing that has been so helpful for us through the years is just that I think our tendency in marriage even as believers is to set ourselves up like the letter a if you think of a capital a and this is David and this is me and we tend to lean really hard on each other and we have that line in there that goes across and that represents the Lord and it's important but if we set ourselves up like this we are leaning so hard on each other and inevitably one of us is going to give out I'm not strong enough to hold David up and he is not strong enough to hold me up either and this bar right here we're not putting God as strong enough to hold that that bar isn't going to hold up this letter either and it's going to tumble down but instead we need to set ourselves up like the letter M and if I'm to let's say this is me and this is this side of the M this is God right here and he is the anchor on both sides of our marriage and we're kind of like a V in the middle here we go look at us here we are we're in M so God is over here and I'm leaning on him he is my source he's my strength he is where I'm getting all of my stability I'm rooted and grounded in him and David is too over there but we're still one this is one letter here and we're connected we're deeply connected and we we're together and so that's important too oneness is being together but it's being rooted in the Lord first and continuing to grow in both of those places because ultimately God is the one who knows us fully he's the only one who can ever know us in that complete full way and love us perfectly but marriage allows us to enter in and love each other in a beautiful amazing way so we would just say in closing just to remember that God loves us in a way that we can't love each other and yet he calls us to love in the power that he gives us to love deeper than we can imagine it's worth going to those layers it's worth state worth taking steps of faith keep reminding ourselves that we are in a covenant with the Lord and then as we marry one another through depending upon him we are in a covenant with one another and it's about growing deeper and deeper and deeper in the awesome intimacy that comes from taking risk in those places well you've been listening to David and Meg Robins our president of family life today on the Love Like You Mean It virtual cruise and boy they got into it if anything good has happened in the last year you know this COVID year where many of us you know did what we just did watching this message we're sitting in our homes you know where we've sort of been locked down you know we had a chance to go deeper in our relationship or pull away and their challenge was let God grow you deeper and I love that because they talked about going deeper in our heart in our spouse's heart and Jesus heart as well and all three of those are really important and I just love David Meg I mean they're just David and Meg are just fun to listen to they're great to be around and they're great leaders so let me ask you like as you've listened to this what could our call to action be what do you think the first thing I think of is something we teach at the family life weekend to remember and that's level five communication and that's what they were talking about going deeper means I'm going to go down to level five which means I'm going to share my heart I'm not going to you know level three or level two as I'm sort of superficial but and and you can be that way of some people in your life at level five in a marriage it's not every minute of the day no but it does mean that I'm going to reveal my heart my struggles my doubts my weakness with the most important person in my life which is my spouse and it's scary to go there that's what they were talking about that's deep and that's it's easier to live in superficial land but man if there's one person you want to go deep with it's your spouse and your king your Lord and the benefits of going there as scary as it is our intimacy not only with God but with your spouse so it's worth it so I would challenge especially the men I think women go there easier maybe I'm wrong but I know you do so I would challenge the men share something real share something scary with your spouse today and ask God to meet you and take you deeper and it doesn't have to be necessarily about your marriage but what you're facing in life and what you're feeling in life that's a good challenge thanks I can imagine that for some people the thought of sharing something that's been hidden something that's been kept under the covers that that can feel scary and threatening you wonder if you're safe so I think the question for you is what can I do to help my marriage become the kind of safe place where we can be transparent where we can be what Genesis 2 talks about naked and unashamed with each other David and Meg presented this message as a breakout session on family life's 2021 love like you mean it virtual marriage cruise the good news is the cruise in 2022 will not be virtual it will be in real life IRL we're gonna be face to face with one another on the cruise and we'd love to have you join us every year that we've done the love like you mean it marriage cruise it has been a sellout and this year's cruise is starting to sell out as well so we have a limited number of cabins still available this is a great week for you to reserve your cabin because we have a back to cruising special that we put together for family life today listeners it ends on Monday you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to reserve your cabin on the cruise if you need more information go to our website familylifetoday.com and click on the link you find there join us Valentine's week of 2022 the love like you mean it marriage cruise again call 1-800-358-6329 to sign up that's 1-800-F as in family L as in life and then the word today now I don't know if you've ever stopped to think about this but God is the one who invented intimacy and marriage he invented sex and tomorrow we're gonna hear from Dr. Julie Slattery about God's good gift to every couple and how we can be a part of that I hope you can join us for that on behalf of our hosts Dave and Ann Wilson I'm Bob Lapine we will see you back next time for another edition of family life today. Family life today is a production of family life a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.