On Hefner and Intimacy

Hugh Hefner had been married three times and dated numerous women over the course of his 91 years of life. He also claimed to have slept with over 1,000 women. By all definitions, by the definition of worldly pleasure, Hugh had it all. Many guys would have loved to traded places with him. Yet this epitome of success was strangely alone at his death. Hefner had no real transcendental relationships.

King Solomon seems like a close match to Hefner. 1 Kings 11 tells us he "loved foreign women" and he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines (mistresses, girlfriends). If you add up the seven hundred and the three hundred, it strangely matches the 1,000 of Hefner. Solomon was the original Hugh Hefner. But we get a sneak peek of where that left him in the book of Ecclesiastes. It left him empty and void. Solomon calls his chasing after pleasure part of his "vanity and chasing after the wind".

I have been married 32 years. I have had my best friend by my side through thick and thin. I have someone whom I completely trust. I heard a great definition of intimacy as "someone whom you can be completely transparent with". God has wired the marital relationship to be so much more than physical. Intimacy is praying together. Intimacy is crying together. Intimacy is sharing thoughts together. Intimacy is just watching a movie together. And on and on it goes. I doubt that Hefner, the original playboy, really knew intimacy.

Direct Access

I was in Washington, D.C. this past week at Health Datapalooza the growing healthcare data show. One of the keynote speakers was Vice President Joe Biden. As I entered into the hotel lobby the morning of the conference, I saw a large line going up the stairs. I quickly deduced that normal conference protocol was out the window. Everyone was required to go through a scanner and hand searches of bags, backpacks etc. When Biden spoke (he was very good), it was pretty obvious that anything out of the ordinary would prompt the numerous plainclothes secret service men to move closer. I was about 50 feet away, but I probably might as well have been two miles away. And this was the Vice President. I can only imagine how far away from President Obama I might be.

Yet every day I have direct access to not just a president, or a king, but the creator God. I look up at heaven and I feel so small yet in God's eyes I am infinitely valuable. In essence, God has given me His cell phone and said "call me anytime day or night" and often I do. God never says He is busy running the universe or handling bigger problems that day. But I think it even goes beyond that - God isn't bothered by me or my trifling human issues but loves for me to call Him up and talk to Him.

Prior to Jesus death and resurrection, I would have needed more than security clearance to get to a holy and righteous God. But something strange happened when Jesus died on the cross. The curtain across the Holy of Holies split in two. This curtain was used to prevent the commoner from approaching God. It was may more than a security scanner. The historian Josephus says that it took multiple horses to pull it apart. Yet, at the point Jesus finished bearing our shame, this curtain was completely torn apart. What does that mean? The scanners were done away with. I have that unfettered access to a holy and righteous God.

I love the Psalms - they reveal this intimacy in such graphic ways. Just these verses in the first 10 chapters.

3:4 - I was crying to the Lord with my voice and He answered me from His holy mountain.
4:8 - In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord make me to dwell in safety
5:3 - In the morning, O Lord you will hear my voice. In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.
6:9 - The Lord has heard my supplication, the Lord receives my prayer.
8:3-4 - When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him?