How to Cultivate Intimacy with God

The Path of the Spiritual Minimalist

Thanks to everyone who tuned in this past weekend for The Saturday Stoke, in which we discussed the spiritual discipline of “silence.”

And a quick question regarding the term/phrase “Spiritual Discipline” - Does this phrase intrigue you, confuse you, feel negative to you—like, “Oh man, I have to be disciplined to be a Christian”—or does it make you think of good thoughts?

I aks because I know it puts some people off and I’m curious if you all view it positively or negatively.

Okay, back to it.

Over the last several weeks we’ve been discussing spiritual minimalism. One of the aspects of spiritual minimalism is - The Desire to Cultivate Intimacy With God. Do we long to draw close to God? Are we cultivating spiritual intimacy with him through practices and disciplines (there’s that word again!) that trim the fat from our spiritual lives? 

Over the years I’ve spoken with many people who ask me, “Tim, I don’t really know where to begin when it comes to intimacy with God. How do you approach it?”

I usually answer with a shotgun of ideas, because I love to talk about this topic. But today, I’d like to share one idea that I find foundational to cultivating intimacy with God: time spent.

Time Spent

I don’t overthink it. And I don’t use a prefabricated Bible study tool on the outset of my time with God. I find time during my morning or when I’m driving on an errand, or travelling for work. I’m not a big television watcher, so I often grab a journal or my Bible and sit in my reading chair in the late evening hours, and scribble prayers.

Time spent is huge. Like any human relationship, if you don’t carve out time with God, you will wake up one day and find yourself estranged from him.

“But Tim,” you say, “what exactly should I do during this precious time spent?”

“Good question,” I reply. “Again, don’t overthink it. Just approach it as you might with a friend.”

It might be a brief time of prayer. It might be reading a short passage of Scripture. It might be listening to worship-focused music while praying and reading.

Whatever you decide to do with the time, the key is to carve out the time in the first place. We live in a very busy culture, and I dare say that cultivating spiritual intimacy with God will require you to make a few hard choices, like giving up a show or waking up earlier. Do what you have to do—just make the time.

Archetype Father

As you know, I’m in a season in which I’m exploring a lifestyle of “going without.” To begin with, I love reducing clutter, but this year I’m getting extreme with it; chucking unused and superfluous stuff, tidying spaces in the home and reordering the things I value most.

I’ve also taken a new (for me) approach to fasting. I’m making it part of the normal cadence of my life. I’ve had some ups and downs, but I can report to you that on the whole, it’s been a beautiful and illuminating time for me with God. I’ve adopted the practice of journaling during certain meal times.

This is one way I’m joining time spent with focused study. I want to share what I learned this morning as a way to encourage you in your own pursuit. And I want to hear from you this week at The Gathering how you are cultivating intimacy with God this year—your favourite practices, what you’re learning, and how God is shaping you.

Christine and I read Ephesians with our girls during the month of January. I was struck by Paul’s prayer in chapter three. It reads:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.

I’ve been rereading this prayer whenever I can and praying for God to reveal himself through it. The prayer delights me. But this morning when I read it, I didn’t get beyond the very first verse:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 

It’s too easy for me to almost skip this whole prayer, thinking it ordinary and of little use in what Paul is saying. How wrong that thinking is! Two things I want to point out that struck me deeply.

First, Paul is kneeling as he prays. We think little of this posture in the modern world. But for Paul, this was a new posture. In Jewish culture, people stood to pray. Bowing your knees was a sign of surrender and honour. It signals the intense passion of not only Paul’s prayer but also his devotion to God himself.

I read this and think about my own posture when I pray. Am I flippant with my posture? Do I even value my posture? What is my posture saying to God? Am I so full of pride that I can’t even bow my knees before Him?

Second, the word “Father.” Again, it’s easy for me to think “Father” as one would think of a family member an move on. Don’t we all refer to God as our Heavenly Father? It’s not really a big deal. But this word Paul uses, Patera (father), carries connotations.

Remember, in studying Scripture, always consider context, context, context. This enhances our understanding of the passage and gives us an accurate meaning.

Here Patera seems to carry the implication found in Job 38:28:

Has the rain a father,
    or who has begotten the drops of dew?

So, it is more than God the father of our family. Here, Paul sees God as Patera of all things in creation, both in heaven and on earth. He is Patera the Orginator. He is the Archetype Patera of all families ever created. He is Patera the Source all that we know and see and all that we do not and cannot know or see.

And it is to this Patera that Paul bows his knees! It is to this Patera that he pours out his heart in prayer for this Christian brothers and sisters in Ephesus. I sat there, in my chair, embarrassed I’d brushed over this so many times. That I never took the time!

What would my prayers sound like, feel like, if I prayed with the picture in my mind of Patera YHWH, the one who has begotten the drops of dew? What if, on my literal knees, I prayed to my Archetype Father, the Patera of the rain?

And so I stopped reading and could do nothing but pray.

Friends, I want to put my arms around you and whisper this in your ear: He wants to meet with us because when we do, revival happens.

I want to leave you with this.

Over the weekend I read about how revival broke out in Northampton in 1733. It was the hometown of Jonathan Edwards. It began with the conversion of one young girl, think of a youth group member for reference. Many of the youths were partying, including this young girl. But when she came under the grip of God, it started a movement in the youth of that town and eventually in all of New England.

I believe God is moving in our midst. His fire is sweeping through in places uncommon an unpopular. How do we step into this holy movement of his? Time spent. That’s where it begins. When we take the time, we end up on our knees before our Patera, swept up in his fire.

See you Thursday night at 8:30 p.m. for The Gathering. Tell a friend! Forward this email to a friend, and let’s step into the movement.