I love this post about developing intimacy with God. So often, intimacy is confused with romance or sex. But true emotional intimacy and love is what we all need. The ultimate source of this is God. I’d really recommend reading the post. Here’s a quote:

The first step to developing an intimate (and fulfilling) love relationship with God is to admit that the abundant life He promises will never be found in another person. Instead, as the definition of zoe (life) shows, true abundant life is internal and it’s found in Christ alone.

Once we have that intimacy and love relationship with God, then we can start to share our love with others.

She writes again in a different post about emotional intimacy, which I really agree with:

There is one particular key to open the Intimacy Door in your relationships: it’s called the Key of Acceptance. Because intimacy means that we allow another person to “see into” us and they allow us to “see into” them, the Key of Acceptance must be used. After all, no one wants to allow someone to “see into” their heart who is controlling, judgmental, critical, sarcastic, unforgiving, abusive, selfish or just plain nasty.

So, if you want others to open their heart to you, you’ve got to give them a safe to do so. Why? Because the truth is that while most of us may act like we’re not afraid of anything, in the deepest part of ourselves, our hearts are very tender, fragile and generally fearful of relational pain. For hearts to thrive in intimacy, they’ve got to feel safe and accepted.

This is true for all relationships – whether romantic or platonic. But perhaps, first of all, we’ve got to accept God’s love for us, deep and truly from the tips of our toes to the hairs on our head.