Why Intimacy with God is the Most Important Pursuit of Our Lives

One cannot attain holiness without God’s grace. God’s grace, given to us by the life, death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is what makes sanctification possible. For, “what is impossible with man is possible with God.” (Luke 18: 27). It should be clear to all of us, I hope, that the work of holiness, which is no other than theosis, divinization, or union with God, is impossible without the help of God. It is impossible without the incarnation of Christ, where God became man so we might become divine. It is impossible without His atoning death on the cross. And it is impossible without the defeat of death in His glorious resurrection.

We, therefore, need the grace of God. And that grace is being offered to us through a reconciling relationship with God:

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18 ESV).

And again St. Paul:

“For while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:10 ESV).

As it is true with any relationship, the strength of that relationship can be measured by the intimacy of that relationship. And we cannot establish intimacy, I believe, without spending intentional time with our beloved. We have seen marriages break down by the distraction of a spouse. We have seen how work-overload can take its toll on the family, on the overworked spouse’s relationships with their spouse and children. Perhaps one of us has experienced this unfortunate fact of life, where work and/or other distractions (an adulterous relationship, for example) leaves a trail of shattered relationships and trust.

Intentional, focused, and disciplined time with our beloved is of the utmost importance with our spouses and children if we want to build healthy and life-giving relationships with them. It is even of more importance with what should be our most precious, valued, and important relationship: our relationship with God through Jesus Christ!

If you are a Christian you know this is true. And yet, many of us, through the excuse of being busy with work, or other relationships, can easily neglect our relationship with our Creator. Ministers like myself can so easily neglect this relationship even in the name of their vocation! Oh, how guilty I am of this! How easily I forget to thank God, to spend time with God in prayer, and to instead isolate myself in my wants and pleasures!

Our world is one of diverse distractions. Opportunities abound where our minds can spend an untold amount of hours occupied in less essential matters. In 2019 we humans spent an average of 144 minutes a day on Social Media. The average American spends an average of 5.4 hours on their phones. According to a Nielsen report, U.S. adults also spend an average of 5.4 hours a day watching TV! Statistics like these, at least on the macro level, make our excuses of not having enough time for our relationship with God sound hollow!

Quantity vs. Quality Time
But wait! Isn't quality time more important than the quantity of time? Especially in our busy lives, shouldn't we be focusing on how to improve the quality of our time with our relationships, including our relationships with God? Why burden people with one more thing to do?

The old debate of whether quality-time is more important than quantity-time can miss an important point: quality-time is impossible to have and maintain without quantity-time. It is true that quality time is important, but I fear this point is being made to avoid spending more time with our loved ones because we are too busy pursuing less essential things. The problem this debate often ignores is that relationships require practice. Building relationships is an art, and like any art, time must be invested in practice before one gets to quality. You can't get to quality without investing the time and effort an art requires. And love, my friends, is the ultimate art. How much more practice would it require of us if we are to grow in love?

As to adding one more thing to do in our busy lives, I believe for most of us this is a matter of balancing priorities. As I mentioned, the pursuit of less essential things can often leave us too distracted to invest in the most essentials things in life: our relationships with our Creator and our loved ones; the growing in love with those we have committed ourselves to. Another important point this question misses is how ordering our relationships often brings balance to our lives. By loving God above everything and anyone else we are able to love others better. After all, if God is love, as we Christians believe, then it follows that there is no better way to love others than by loving God. I mention this because many of us, for example, can plunge into our jobs to provide for our families. We do this as a sacrificial act of love. And while this sacrifice is often admired, I believe it is ultimately misguided.

1 John 4: 7-12 makes this point clearer:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. - ESV emphases added.

Instead of asking how adding one more thing to our busy lives would overwhelm us, ask how growing in love will improve every other area of our lives, including our jobs, relationships. etc...

Imagine what our neighborhoods, cities, and societies would look like if we all re-arranged our priorities likewise. Wouldn't you want to live in a neighborhood where people practiced daily the love of neighbor? How would our country look like if we took seriously God's admonitions to love God and neighbor? This work is too important to be secondary, or worse, ignored!

This is why intimacy with God is of the utmost importance. It is not just because you will grow as an individual, though I believe you will. It is not just so you can experience the riches of the love of God, though I believe those riches are more than worth our tireless pursuit. But it is because there is no better way to love. There is no better practice to love others than to love God. God is calling us to intimacy not because God demands our love out of selfish desire, but because by loving God love becomes "perfected in us."

So, what are we waiting for?! The need is too great to wait!