Intimacy Without Commitment
- The Narrow Path
- May 31, 2024
- 2 min read
Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37-38, NIV).
Online dating is rough. I won’t go into details, but my single friends know. One of the most common platforms recently did an update, and with it, brought a few changes.
There’s now a section in each person’s profile where it allows them to say what they are looking for: friendship, short term relationship, long-term relationship, and marriage. A new one that really has my head spinning is intimacy without commitment.
Without too much thought, you can infer what that person might be looking for. I wish I could say I was shocked, but our world has become a “no strings attached” type of society in a lot of ways.
The more I processed, the more I realized just how much the wording struck me. The statement, intimacy without commitment, seems like an oxymoron to me. Does someone really believe they can have true intimacy without connection? I guess that depends on how you define intimacy.
An excellent description of intimacy can be found in Matthew 22: 37-38: Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.
What does it look like to know someone with all your heart, soul, and mind? I think it might require a little commitment. I simply cannot know God with all my heart, soul, and mind if I am not intentional to connect and communicate with Him.
Spending time in His word, talking to Him in prayer, sitting in silence at His feet and listening, and choosing to trust Him are ways that I can create intimacy. And without that, I would not be walking according to the first and greatest commandment.
This brings me back to the concept of intimacy without connection. In any relationship, a friend, family member, boyfriend/girlfriend, or husband/wife, intimacy (not just physical) is something that must be built over time by spending time with one another, and getting to know the other person’s heart.
When I look back over the last 5-7 years of my life, I can see so many ways in which my love, knowledge, and understanding of the character of God has deepened. That doesn’t happen without intimacy AND connection.
My prayer for anyone who believes they can have intimacy without connection is that they would come to know Christ. When you have a personal relationship with Jesus, you will develop a deeper understanding of true intimacy, and it allows you to be committed in ways you’ve never known before. I know that has been true in my life, and I want that for everyone.
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