People. Need them. Can’t stand them. Messy relationships seem to be the only kind available. The push-pull of your true need for intimacy conflicting with the reality of broken humans can wear you out. I work with some people who have shut themselves off from any close relationships. And I work with others who are voraciously running from relationship to relationship trying to get filled up.

Either way, how’s that working for you?

An old Charles Schultz Peanuts cartoon said it well. Lucy says to Linus, “You don’t love mankind.” And Linus retorts, “I love mankind … it’s people I can’t stand!!” Maybe you feel the same.

This shows itself in countless ways. And God-stuff, religious messages, and morality get mixed up in the middle of it all. Here are a few examples from people I’ve connected with:

• The young woman desperate for marriage – with no prospects are in sight, wondering why God’s not coming through for her
• The elderly widower who loves sex, wondering if “making each other feel good” with his new lady friend is sinful if they don’t have intercourse
• The person experiencing same-sex attraction, trying to address their loneliness and skin-hunger and still follow Jesus well
• The spouse feeling hurt and lonely in marriage, wondering why God would allow them to get into this mess when they did everything “right”

Each of these people has a complicated story around messy relationships. And you do too. Much of the messiness has to do with the tangled beliefs and assumptions we weave together in our minds. You can’t change other people, even if you’re married to one. But you can deal with the messiness in your own head.

Here are three areas to work on disentangling that will help your personal wellbeing and how you relate to people and to God.

Disentangle Sex from Intimacy and Connection

Sex and intimacy are related – or should be, as God intended. But they are not the same. God intended sex and intimacy to be connected within covenant marriage in a deep and meaningful way. But you know as well as I do that there are lots of marriages without any intimacy regardless of whether sex is happening or not. And there’s plenty of sex happening with no intimacy, whether in our outside of marriage.

And yet God created every human being with the deep need for intimacy. It’s not just a nice-to-have; it’s a real need. And simply going to sex doesn’t address that; you can’t experience intimacy by just taking the clothes off your body.

We are embodied beings; you have a sex drive, sex organs, sex hormones. Jesus did too, when He was here on earth. But don’t confuse that with your need for intimacy. How will you steward that part of your being? What will you do to address the ways in which intimacy has gone wrong in your story? Where will you seek healthy intimacy now?

Disentangle what God Provides from what People Provide

Some people look to other people to fill them up. If you’re married, Adam looks to Eve to be his everything, and Eve expects Adam to satisfy her, and both are deeply disappointed. An unmarried person often imagines getting married will cure their loneliness, unhappiness, or porn/sex problem; it doesn’t. There are deep places in your soul that no one person or group of people can fill.

This is where pursuing intimacy with God becomes absolutely vital. Intimacy with the living God of the universe is not an ethereal “something” only available to a few spiritual giants. This is what Jesus came to earth, lived, and died that you might experience – both here and now, and for eternity.

And then there are other people who say, “It’s just me and Jesus.” They shut people off entirely. Some married people keep their spouse at arm’s length thinking they’re being “spiritual.” Others become some variety of a hermit, never allowing anyone close enough to really know them.

While Jesus lived in moment-to-moment intimacy with His Father, He also needed people. Truly needed them. And you do too. You’ve been hurt in relationship, and God’s plan is that you will only be healed in relationship. People can’t and won’t fill up the God-hole in your soul. But without people you will never become mature, whole, and who God made you to be.

Find your people. Do the hard work to find and nurture your Peter, James, and John.

Disentangle Your Need for Intimacy from Learning to Feed Yourself

As much as you truly need people, need intimacy, you will not find goodness by pining over the people you don’t have in your life, waiting for someone – your friend, spouse, the church, God – to magically appear and fill your soul with what you need. Yes, you must learn to be open to receive when something good comes your way. But God has given you agency – the ability to be aware and to make decisions that affect your wellbeing.

Please don’t read this and imagine, “I need intimacy and nobody’s available. I’m sunk.” Regardless of relationship status, it’s up to you to seek healthy connection. Be proactive. If you’re married, this includes pursuing intimacy with your spouse (I don’t mean just sex).

And people are not all you need. Where do you need other kinds of soul nourishment? You have the ability to recognize when you’re hungry, to seek the nourishment you need, and to actually take it into your being and metabolize it. That’s learning to feed yourself. Some of what you need includes beauty, perspective, adventure, rest, and more, in addition to connection with God and with others.

And the more you invest in proactively taking in the beauty, goodness, healing, and more that God makes available to you, the more you will have to offer those relationships that are closest and most important to you. You will become increasingly capable of true intimacy as you do your own work of becoming.

People, God, and Your Heart

Messy relationships will always be part of our experience. But when you disentangle these messages and assumptions, your human relationships will have more joy and substance than you may have imagined, and your life with God will be more fulfilling than ever.

Your Turn: Which of these three things do you need to disentangle in your own mind? Can you see some assumptions you’ve held to that have kept you stuck? Where have you tried to get filled up that isn’t working? What will you do next? Leave a comment below.

Want More? On this week’s podcast I answer a number of relationship questions from people just like you. Listen or watch.

Tweetables: why not share this post?

• Messy relationships are hard. But there are no other kind of relationships available. Here are some things to disentangle about relationships with people, God, and your heart.  Tweet that.

Getting to the Matters of the Heart

The wounds, the unhealthy beliefs, the behavior patterns, the internal struggles, the spiritual oppression especially around intimacy, sex, and relationships – we can help with that.

Join us at an upcoming intensive – a beautiful 3-4 day premium experience that can change so much. Bring the hard places of your story into the light, and experience Jesus coming right into the middle of your story with healing, freedom, and transformation.