Intimacy with God most important

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

 

WE have to do everything to have intimacy with God all the time because that is the best and proper condition for us to be in this life. And by intimacy, I mean not only involving our mind and will, such that we have an abiding awareness of God’s presence in our life, but also our feelings and passions. This may not be easy and quick to accomplish, but we have our whole life to achieve that condition.

The important thing to remember is that we have to set our whole selves to meet that condition. We have to convince ourselves that our relationship with God and also with everybody else attains its best condition when we manage to be intimate with them.

It’s when we are intimate with God and others where we can really see ourselves and God and everybody else as we truly are, in our rawest and unvarnished selves. Intimacy is where the most fundamental expressions of our humanity are made, where we become aware of our personhood, and where our identity is established and defined.

As such, intimacy is what would make us strongly feel that we need God and everybody else. They become a necessity to us, and not just optional items in our life. Intimacy heals our common tendency, a weakness and an anomaly actually, to think and feel that we can just be by our own selves.

Intimacy is what makes our human powers and faculties attain their proper exercise and trajectory. Otherwise, we would just misuse or abuse them, much like prostituting them since without intimacy, we would just be using them purely for self-indulgence.

To achieve this intimacy with God and with everybody else definitely would require some discipline and training. It does not come quite automatically, because we will always have the tendency to misuse our freedom. Instead of loving God and others, as what our true freedom ought to lead us, we tend to simply love our own selves.

That is why we need to pray and to deepen our faith which is the source of the ultimate truth that governs our life here on earth. And then we need to train all our faculties and powers—our intelligence, will, feelings, passions, etc.—to conform to this faith-provided truth about ourselves.

We also have to convince ourselves that contrary to some beliefs, to be intimate in our relationship with God and with everybody else would not make us appear or behave weird. It’s actually when we are intimate with God and with everybody else that we are directed to the perfection of our humanity.

To be intimate with God and with everybody else will definitely require effort and a lot of sacrifice, given our weakened human condition in this life. We need to follow the teaching and example of Christ that would always involve self-denial, carrying the cross, etc. We need to be very understanding, patient and charitable with everybody with whom we may have differences and conflicts.

It’s when we manage to handle these difficult conditions that our intimacy with God and with others is tested and proven true and authentic. In the end, intimacy teaches us how to transcend the twists and turns of our earthly drama to focus on what is truly important for us—our eternal life with God and with everybody else in heaven!

 

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com