It's Complicated | Part 1 | Joel Malm
Channel: CCSeguin
Date: 2023-10-02

Part 1: I Hate Intimacy (But I Love Closeness)

Intimacy: close familiarity or friendship; closeness.

Genesis 2:19-25
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man 
to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s
ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a 
woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the 
man. 
 
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall 
be called ‘woman,’  for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and
they become one flesh.

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only 
a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and 
can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can 
move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to
the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not 
have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not 
proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily 
angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but 
rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, 
always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where 
there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass 
away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness 
comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I 
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the 
ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, 
even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these 
is love.
Key Point: There’s a connection between growth and willingness to be vulnerable.... But it’s complicated.

The Five Levels of Closeness:
1. Superficial - Small talk. Comments on weather. “How are you?” (Answer is always: “fine”)
2. Informational - What movies you like, where you went on vacation, etc. 
3. Perspective - Risk sharing perspective on politics, religion, etc.
4. Soul Level - Risk sharing about feelings, hopes, dreams, emotions.
5. True Closeness - Risk sharing secrets about ourselves, fears, failures, etc. confident we are in a safe place.