The Heart

   Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.


     One of the steps I went through while working through the Bondage Breakers course was to break the connection to the people who abused me.  I'm going to get a little deep here so breathe with me.  When there is sexual contact between two people, they become one.  God intended this for marriage.  But when you are sexually abused or have any kind of inappropriate sex with another person, you are connected to them and part of recovery is to break that connection.
     With sexual abuse victims one of the survival skills we develop is to leave our hearts out of it.  We don't want to feel.  We come to believe physical, sexual touch IS intimacy.  In reality sex is a physical expression of intimacy for married couples to become one so our vision of intimacy is very distorted.  Through life we learn to keep our hearts completely shut out of it for our own protection. 
    If physical intimacy is experienced without the heart, then the physical part of sex is the only intimacy known.  I truly believe that Jesus said it's okay for me to say this so take a deep breath.  We cannot have sex with God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit whether we are a man or a woman we do not feel God's physical touch the way we do with another human being.  Intimacy with Christ is all about a heart, soul and spirit connection.  The enemy was really working over time here the day he realized that if he could convince us to leave our heart out of intimacy there is no way we can connect with Christ?  We don't know how to connect with God or even other people.  This happens by our own will.  Our own need for protection.  It's a flight or fight response to connecting.  I believed sex is used so often by the enemy because it is an excellent way to get us to shut out God and we do it ourselves.  All the enemy has to do is whisper in our ears and the fear of getting close causes us to run.  What ability we do have to open our hearts to another human being is a surface connection.  We are only able to get so close before we turn and run.  Sex is dirty, so intimacy is dirty, so getting to close to another person is bad.
     I'm pretty sure we have all had a deep conversation with a friend.  One of those that you feel all warm and fuzzy inside and you really don't want it to end.  This has happened to me only a few times in my life and I usually throw a wall up when it's over.  But this is a better example of intimacy than what we know.
     Society has even turned the word intimacy into sex.  Last night I heard a man say he had an intimate friendship with another man and I shuddered.  In reality, it was a close friendship, but in my mind it was dirty.  Sexual abuse victims or even people who have had affairs or other "wrong" sexual intimacy associate sex/intimacy with "I am bad".  Obviously there is something wrong with me, a part of me that is bad, or I wouldn't be doing this.  We may not be consciously thinking it but somewhere down inside our damaged heart or soul is a connection.  If I let someone close to me, they will know I am bad. 
     If love is the greatest commandment, what better way for the enemy to mess with us?  What better way to shut us down than to convince us that intimacy leads to pain.  When in reality it is only the wrong sexual contact that led us to pain.  If intimacy is sex and sex leads to pain, well...then where does intimacy lead?  Straight to heartache.  We have to come to Christ like a child, with an undamaged heart...a new heart.  This is one area where the old self has to die for us to connect with Christ at all.  How do we do it?  I'm sitting here sweating just thinking about it.  In fact the enemy has been fighting me hard on writing this.  I have been in a near panic attack since I started.  I don't know how to fix this.  First step is to admit we have a problem.  I am powerless over the affects the past has had on my ability to have an intimate relationship.  Okay God, what's next?  I gave my heart to You, so You are going to have to fix it. 


“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.”
― C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer