Perhaps that’s another reason true intimacy is so frightening. It’s the one thing we all want, and must give up control to get.
The harshest people I’ve met over the years have had two things in common: they don’t fully trust anybody, and they view relationships as a means to an end.
The strongest character in a story isn’t the hero, it’s the guide.
It’s funny what happens to you when part of your heart gets born inside somebody else.
How can we be loved if we are always in hiding?
In every line of copy we write, we’re either serving the customer’s story or descending into confusion; we’re either making music or making noise.
They never tell you when you get born a control freak it will cost you a healthy love life. But it’s true. You can’t control somebody and have intimacy with them at the same time. They may stay because they fear you, but true love casts out fear.
The reality is this, though: a healthy person coupled with an unhealthy person will still result in an unhealthy relationship.
But true intimacy is just like that: it’s the food you grow from well-tilled ground. And like most things good for us, it’s an acquired taste.
I think a lot of the shame-based religious and political methodology has more to do with keeping people contained than with setting them free. And I’m no fan of it.
We both have our independence and freedom, but we have those things with each other. It’s a paradox, but it works. It all reminded me of what my friend Henry Cloud told me, that when two people are entirely and completely separate they are finally compatible to be one. Nobody’s self-worth lives inside of another person. Intimacy means we are independently together.
I tend to connect most easily with two kinds of people, those who are creating something and those who are easily vulnerable. Both trees grow from the same root, I think, and that’s the willingness to take risks.
It’s true: if we live behind a mask we can impress but we can’t connect.
But it’s better when you have somebody to go home to and talk about it with, somebody who is more in love with you than impressed by you.
The risk of being known is also the decision to be criticized by some.
I’ve come to believe a person’s love for you can’t grow unless you hold that person loosely.
We were meant to enjoy life, not be drowned by it.
I’d learned my default mode was to perform. Even in small groups I feel like I have to be “on.” But when I’m alone my energy comes back. When I’m alone I don’t have to perform for anybody.
In my opinion the misappropriation of the longing for God has caused a lot of people a great deal of pain. In fact, I wondered if some of my early mistakes in relationships weren’t partly because I sought to find resolution for the longing through a woman, a burden no romantic partner should have to bear. How many relationships have been ruined by two people attempting to squeeze the Jesus out of each other?
If the Gospel of Jesus is relational, that is, if our brokenness will be fixed not by our understanding of theology but by God telling us who we are, then this would require a kind of intimacy of which only Heaven knows.