Leah Sax:
Hello and Welcome to Episdoe 32 of Delight Podcast I am Leah Sax.
Adam Curtis:
Hello, and I’m Adam Curtis.
Leah Sax:
Now last week we had our first repeat guest, Lucy Rycroft, talking about stillness. Adam, how since last episode, have you been making stillness a part of your life?
Adam Curtis:
That is unfair for you to throw that question right at me.
Leah Sax:
I totally didn’t prepare him at all for this question. In fact, I prepared him for something completely different. While Adam thinking of his answer, I’m going to still remember the fact that I’m sitting on that Exodus 14 passage, which being still doesn’t always mean being physically still. Let God fight for you. We keep moving in that and taking those moments to go right. God is in control and being thankful in that moment.
Adam Curtis:
I’ve been enjoying being still when I’ve let creation speak to me of of God’s glory.
Leah Sax:
I don’t know if this was unintentional or intentional, but that’s a topic we’re going to be looking at a little bit in today’s episode. Adam. What? Tell us. Tell us what is today’s episode?
Adam Curtis:
Adam unintentionally just done a link. Today. We’re looking at intimacy with my friend Ed Shaw. He’s the ministry director of Living Out and the ministry director of Emmanuel Church, Bristol.
Leah Sax:
Ed Shaw, welcome to Delight Podcast!
Ed Shaw:
It’s very good to be with you.
Leah Sax:
Thank you so much. It’s lovely to have you. Now, Ed, I don’t know if you remember, but I’ve actually met you before. And the reason I remember meeting you, because I have the memory of a goldfish is you gave hands down the best talk on singleness I have heard in my entire life, and then promptly sent my notes to everyone I know. And it was one of the most encouraging things I’ve ever heard. So thank you for that.
Ed Shaw:
But was that was that because it was the only talk on singleness you’ve ever had in your life? Because this is the problem. Not many people give talks on singleness.
Leah Sax:
I mean, that was also it. I did say that as well in the same phrase. I was like, this was incredible. And then I had all the notes. So basically not because it was the only one, but it was also fabulous. So I appreciate that. Just as a disclaimer, can you tell us who are you? What do you do?
Ed Shaw:
You know, it’s always hard to know where to start, but I can start by saying I’m a single person and I celebrate that fact. Um, and, you know, because so often I’ll be. Now, wouldn’t I be talking about my wife and my 15 children. But I’m not. I’m single. Um. And instead, I can talk about the fact that I actually have a life. Um, and, um, I get to do loads of different things, so I, you know, I’m a member of a family, I’ve got parents, I’ve got some siblings, I’ve got some fantastic nephews and nieces. I’ve got 13 godchildren. Um, I’m the pastor of a church in the city centre of Bristol. Uh, I also help lead a family of churches. Also help lead a ministry called Living Out. I get to read a lot, listen to music. I have loads of friends. Is anybody bored of me yet? But I could keep going. I get to do a whole host of things.
Leah Sax:
Can you tell us how did you come to faith? How did you come to know Jesus.
Ed Shaw:
In Shaw family folklore there’s a lovely little story of me coming back from Sunday school at age five and telling my mother that I’d accepted Jesus into my heart, and while he was down there, he could get rid of the plastic thing that I’d swallowed the week before. Um, my mother was slightly more concerned about this plastic thing that she had not heard about than the fact that I accepted Jesus into my heart. But it was about five that I really got going as a Christian, mainly because I grew up in a Christian home, but also because that Christian home when I was five was was turned upside down by the death of a younger sister. My parents and myself and my other sister just had our lives devastated by the death of my sister Alice when she was just two months old. But God used that in my life to get me going. As a Christian, you know, I look back at what happened there and how confusing it was for a five year old. I look back at my parents, who were the incredibly young Christian couple, but who really discipled me. Well, if I could put it like that, parented me well, helped me to realise that as our lives were sort of falling apart, I could trust in Jesus and I hope that he provided us with seeing Alice again in a new heaven and a new earth. That was the big sort of crucible for obviously, a very young faith, a faith that’s been tested and has grown in different ways since then. But the crucible of my faith is a Christian home and a Christian home that was turned upside down when I was five, but a Christian home that pointed me to how Jesus provides hope in otherwise hopeless situations.
Leah Sax:
Jesus provides hope and otherwise hopeless situations, in grief and in mourning, and in learning that as a very young child. You said your faith has been tested and it’s grown. If you think back on the last X number of years, are there any things that spring to mind in where the Lord’s been at work?
Ed Shaw:
I often describe myself as the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, so I am an older brother. I fit a lot of the sort of, you know, the classic things that go with being an elder brother. You know, I’m very dutiful. I keep the rules. I am brilliantly self-righteous, you know, in some ways a bit of a pain to be with at times because of those things, what God has been doing. I think throughout my life, and continues to have to do, is basically teach me that I’m an elder brother who needs to repent and recognise his fatherly care for me as much as the younger brother does. You may have read the book or the noun book on the parable, and I’m really struck by every time I’m in that story how I am the elder brother, and how I need to be reminded of God’s fatherly love and care for me. And I need to stop dreaming of what it would be like to be the prodigal son. You know, I spent so much of my life wanting to have basically done what the prodigal son did. I basically spent a lot of my life judging the prodigal son, feeling self-righteous, and at the same time being quite jealous of him and wishing I’d done the same, or imagining doing the same. So basically, the story of my life is in the parable of the prodigal Son. I’m the self-righteous guy that you meet at the end, and I keep needing to be humbled, and I need to be reminded that my father, God, loves me. Particularly those words that the father speaks to the elder brother at the end. You know, basically reminding him that he’s always been with me and that everything he has is mine is something I need to be reminded of and convinced of that God’s always been with me. That’s been the delight of my life. I’ve never wandered away from him. He’s always been. And everything he has is mine. And I shouldn’t be feeling bitter about what I see other people having. I should enjoy all the God’s given me.
Leah Sax:
So your current book is The Intimacy Deficit. What inspired you to write that?
Ed Shaw:
I basically write books for myself. Um, so I write books. I write books that I need to read, and I write books that I need to read again and again. In some ways, the person that most needs to read The Intimacy Deficit is Ed Shaw, and it’s written by Ed Shaw. But it’s, you know, I do actually dedicate it to other people because I’m not quite as egocentric as to say, this book is dedicated to myself. It’s for me because, like all of us, I have been wired as a human being to crave connection and to crave deep relationships and intimacy. And I think in four key areas with my creator God, with myself, with other people, and with this world, this creation that God has given us. I need those connections. I need those deep relationships to flourish. And I’ve written a book for myself and other people who want to listen in to see how that can happen more, how those relationships can grow and deepen in a way that can bring flourishing life in all its fullness for me and for others.
Leah Sax:
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Adam Curtis:
If someone in the office said that they’d been intimate with a colleague. Then eyebrows would be raised and the rumour mill would get churning. If you switch on TV, you’ll hear the contestants on Love Island speaking about taking things to the next level of intimacy. And everyone knows what that means. Is true intimacy only found between the covers? To have an intimate relationship, do you have to have a sexual one? And what does it mean to have true intimacy?
Ed Shaw:
It just means to feel a deep connection and to be in a deep relationship. To feel at home with that one, with someone else. Obviously that can happen in the bedroom, but often doesn’t. I want to say that it can just happen in loads of other contexts, and that society has damaged us by just limiting experiences of deep connection, intimacy, relationship to sexual relationships, and to the bedroom. And I want us to see that actually that’s bad and that we can all experience true, deep, lasting intimacy, whether or not we ever get married. Ever have sex.
Adam Curtis:
And where does this desire, this yearning for intimacy come from?
Ed Shaw:
It comes from God. Basically, you know, if we have a creator God who has experienced the joy of relationship, deep relationship, deep connection in the Trinity, father, son, and Holy Spirit for all of time. And he wants us to enjoy that too, basically. So God is saying this, this wonderful thing called relationship. I want you to enjoy it too. And I’ve wired you to want it and to enjoy it.
Adam Curtis:
Okay, so if God is wired us to want relationship, to enjoy intimacy and deep connection, if he’s the one who’s made us this way, why do we struggle so much to find intimacy?
Ed Shaw:
Yeah. I mean, we struggle for a whole host of different reasons. And obviously in Christian theology, the Christian story, one of the reasons we struggle is that we were created for that deep connection. We had that deep connection right at the beginning of time. Genesis 1 and 2 talks of a world in which we enjoy deep connection with God and with ourselves and with others and with creation. But we then foolishly sort of broke that connection, and we’ve been living with the consequences ever since. And therefore we don’t enjoy that connection with God, ourselves, others in creation. And we we get things wrong and we muck things up, and we allow things like fear or insecurities or misunderstandings or a whole host of other things to stop us enjoying the relationships we were designed to have and to thrive.
Adam Curtis:
Your book is very helpful, Ed, about how we as individuals can struggle to find intimacy. It talks about the blockers, but also talks about the catalysts to finding intimacy. And you particularly talk about finding time with God, yourself, others, and creation. And I wonder if it might be helpful for us now just to slowly go through those different categories if intimacy can be so hard. How do we find intimacy with God?
Ed Shaw:
One of the things to do is to explore what the blockers are for you, and they’ll be different for different people. You know, some of us, the key blocker in intimacy with God is just how intimate relationships have gone wrong in the past. So, for instance, you know, one of the pictures that the scriptures give us to help us grasp the intimate relationship we enjoy with God, is God as our father. And for some of us, that’s really difficult because we’ve never had an intimate relationship with our dad. Our dad was never there, or when our dad was there, he just produced fear. And so some of us would just find some of the language. The pictures in Scripture are really difficult to help us really appreciate the father love of God. Other verses and this is me will have a sort of a pride that doesn’t really want to depend on God, that wants to be independent, that doesn’t want to actually have to rely on somebody else and pour out our heart to somebody else and know that I need God in every moment of the day, because I want to do it by myself.
Ed Shaw:
And it’s my pride that comes in the way. Everybody will have a different factors in play that stop them having the sort of relationship that Scripture encourages to, which is, you know, like a child with a really good parent or like a friend with their best friend, or like a husband with their wife in a really good marriage. Those are the pictures that Scripture gives us of what intimacy with God should look like, but for various reasons, in different ways, in different circumstances. We all put up blockers and don’t allow ourselves. And this is what’s the tragedy for Christians to experience something that is there on a plate for us, if only we would enjoy it. God is saying to us again and again through the scriptures, I want to be your dad. I want to be your best friend. I want to be your lover. If I say more than that to Christians, he’s saying, I am your dad. I am your best friend. I am your lover and we just need to realise that that’s reality.
Adam Curtis:
And can you help us think through how we could experience that reality? How can I dwell on these truths? That God is my father, my best friend? That God is my lover?
Ed Shaw:
Well, we’re wired in different ways. So, you know, the danger is, I say, this works for me. And you’re sitting there thinking, my goodness, no, it never works. So let me just let me just share with you and let let let’s start. Let’s start the cheesy end of the spectrum, please. Andy Williams sings that amazing song, I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You, and it is a brilliant song. I love playing it and I played it here after we did a series on the Song of Songs. And basically this is what God is saying to his people corporately. This is what God is saying. He’s saying, I can’t take my eyes off of you. And for those of us you know, I’m a single man, so there’s nobody that’s ever going to play that music. It’s never going to be my song that, you know, couples have a song, but, you know, there’s a song. You know, God sings all the great love songs. Basically, God sings to his people. And so that’s one way of just feeling that. Think of the best love song that is a sort of song that God sings over his people. He talks about singing over his people in Zechariah Song of Songs. Hey, it’s a song and it’s a love song to his people. And to be honest, some of the language is slightly fruity, but you know, it’s there. For those of us who like cheesy music, that’d be a way of connecting with the idea of God as our lover when it comes to father. I was listening to another podcast.
Ed Shaw:
(there are other podcasts available) early this week about, you know, God as Father. And just a reminder we get of when we see children interacting with their parents, with the church family here, we’ve got loads of really small kids and just seeing fathers scooping up their children in their arms. Mum’s doing the same, father’s feeding, mum’s teaching their kids to speak. That is a picture of God’s loving care for me, and particularly those moments, you know, when a child is just having a totally irrational strop and a parent. Not always, but often. It’s just being wonderfully patient. I need to be thinking that is God with me. I’m always having irrational strops with God all the time. I’m in the middle of an irrational strop with God at the moment, and I can’t quite. You know, when a child is an irrational stop and they can’t quite get out of it. And you see that they want to, but they can’t. And then you see a parent respond with patience and love. That is God all the time with me. And you know, parents every so often lose it. Lose their patience. Lose their temper. God never loses patience. Lose his temper with me. You know a couple of things. You know, cheesy love songs and just seeing good parents and child relationships or ways of just connecting this. And this is what I love about what God does. He chooses language to express his love for us. And then he surrounded us with examples of that in creation to reinforce what he says in His word.
Adam Curtis:
Oh, those are beautiful. Thank you. My heart is singing as I hear them. And actually, as you were speaking, it reminds me, I think. I think Leah does the same thing with pop songs. How do you use pop songs to encourage you? Leah?
Leah Sax:
So I spend a lot of my life playing pop songs, and I do exactly what you do, which is take those words and reposition them in the light of Jesus, in the light of God. I actually at church I went recently, I was being interviewed and at the end I played Ain’t Nobody. And having spoken about that, there’s ain’t nobody loves me better than Jesus. And just doing that exact same thing in that moment. And it helps you in a very in a culture that is so other to refocus your heart. So I do that exact same thing. So as you were saying, can’t take my eyes off you was like, yep, I’m so with you on that. And it’s so incredibly helpful in a world where we’re flooded with these things to kind of reposition our hearts.
Ed Shaw:
And if I can. So this is going to sound like such a middle aged comment, but I can’t take it. It’s such a sexy song, you know, and we think, oh, we can’t use that of God. But then you read Song of Songs and Song of Songs, you know, it’s dripping with sex and, you know, therefore, the sort of to think that we can’t use a song that is dripping with desire, which I can’t take my eyes off you is God is exactly wanting to take and use that language to describe his love for the church.
Adam Curtis:
Moving from intimacy with God. You also touch in your book about having intimacy with ourselves, which even just saying that statement out loud, it just sounds a bit dodgy, doesn’t it? But we’re not meaning it in a dodgy way. Why should we think about having intimacy with ourselves. If intimacy is about connection and relationship, even, why should we think about having intimacy with ourselves?
Ed Shaw:
Oh, because the scriptures teach us that we are wonderfully and uniquely made by God. He wants us to know him, but he also wants to know us, know ourselves. He wants us to know about ourselves. He wants us to know what our strengths or weaknesses are. He wants us to take and use the gifts he’s given us, the natural gifts he’s given us, the spiritual gifts he’s given us, and he wants us to use those to serve him and to serve other people. And to do that, we need to know ourselves. You know, one of the experiences of life should be for a child or for a teenager, and for us as adults is it’s just gradually getting a sense of of what’s unique about me. You know how God wants to use me and what Ed Shaw brings to a friendship, or to a family, or to a conversation, or to an organisation or to a church that means me learning my strengths and my weaknesses. You know, one of the best things I did in my 20s was get involved in leading Cyfa Ventures. You know, kids camps over the summer, because every year I got an opportunity to discover new strengths and weaknesses. I would sometimes look at the sort of, and this is the old days where people used to send out a list of responsibilities. You’d rip it open and you’d go, no. And then sometimes, yes, just because the different things every year, there were some things you did. And just gradually people would ask you to do it again and again and again and you realise, oh, this is something that I’m good at and that people want to recognise my gifts.
Ed Shaw:
And there were some responsibilities you did for one year and were never asked to do again. It was really helpful to think that is a way in which I am not gifted, and which the church could benefit from me never doing again. And we just need to find contexts in which we can find out what our strengths and weaknesses are. We need to be in friendships where people will say to us, brilliant or never again. We need to be able to say with confidence, I’m good at that, or I’m useless at that. I really fear that Christian communities often we think we shouldn’t think about ourselves. We think we shouldn’t talk about ourselves. We think that humility is not being open and honest about what we’re good at and what we’re bad at. When I think true humility is saying, yeah, actually I could do that, or true humility is never asked me to do that again. We need the conversations that enable everybody to get a real sense of who they are in Christ. I could go on about this for a long time, because I think Christians are particularly bad at it, and it’s taken me ages. I joke that I actually, you know, I came out about my sexuality. The fact that I’m same sex, gay, before I came out about the fact that I can share a good meeting. You know, some people say that’s because there’s a lot more shame about chairing a good meeting than there is about your sexuality. But it’s just also just we just don’t we just don’t talk about strengths and weaknesses. And I’m fed up of the negative effects that that brings.
Leah Sax:
Oh, brother, when I read that chapter, Intimacy with Yourself, it was so encouraging. I think it’s also a very British trait of not going, this is what I’m good at. But when you reframe it in that this is the gift that God has given me, that is from the Lord, and I’m going to use that, and also that I love also that I’m reading your book that that want for feedback. Hey, how did I do this? You’re like mate, that is not your strength. You’re like, okay, this is not some kind of awful critique, but this is me going. This is how God has created me. And I can and we can grow all the time. But that was incredibly. I have a sister at church who’s very direct. I’m going to name her because she’s fabulous. Em Short wife of our lovely guest Phil Short. She has always had a joy in going: I’m good at that and I’m not good at that. And it goes slightly against our culture. But actually she’s saying, this is what how God has made her, and she’s incredibly useful for God’s service in what she does. Also, the slight disclaimer the reason I squealed earlier when you mentioned the cyfa ventures is that that is exactly how Adam and I met on a cipher venture in that refining process. And funnily enough, the refining process for us was both getting up at seven in the morning and doing morning entertainment for numerous young children over breakfast. And here we are now.
Ed Shaw:
But also I could tell a story about that. We once played a joke on one of our leaders. He was the most unsuitable person for morning entertainment, and we put him down on it. But because he was Christian, he just felt, well, I’m going to be really bad at this, but they’ve asked me to do it, so I’m going to do it. And we just get the practical joke went wrong because he took it seriously. But you wanted to say he should have been able to say he should have. He perhaps should have got that it was a joke, but also he should have been able to say no, but he just sort of thought, no, I’ve got a you know, even though I know I’m going to be useless, I’m going to do this because that’s what being a Christian is. You’re thinking being a Christian is not keeping on doing what you know you’re useless at. Being a Christian is learning how God’s gifted you and using those gifts.
Adam Curtis:
Amen, indeed. And can I say, and I’ve already told this to Ed’s face, I’m sorry if it embarrasses you, Ed, but you are really good at chairing meetings. The only meetings I actually basically like to be in are ones which are being chaired by Ed.
Ed Shaw:
That’s what they’ll put on my gravestone. He chaired meetings well.
Adam Curtis:
And if they don’t ed, I’ll come there and chisel it myself. Let’s talk about how do we find intimacy with others.
Ed Shaw:
Basically time and honesty, I think, are sort of two of the big things. Again, it would depend on our circumstances and our personality. We all have different love languages. I’m a great fan of the five love languages, except I also think there’s a sixth, which is banter. But basically your time and honesty. So you just need to spend time with people, and you need to see them in the ups and downs of life, and you just need to be open and honest. And when people ask you how you’re doing, you need to find ways of sharing how you’re doing. And they need to know what a good day and a bad day looks like for you. And they need to know when you’re pretending that everything’s fine and when you’re not. Time and honesty, I think, are the big things, and they are so often the things that are lacking. We don’t have time. We don’t feel that we have time. We feel that it’s right to lie. You know, most churches, most Sundays. How are you? Fine. How are you? Fine or not? Fine. I mean, somebody says, how are you? We go. How are you? Neither of us answered the question, but it’s just a bit of sort of social thing rather than actually, you know, sometimes as you’re coming in the door at church, there isn’t the time for a proper conversation. But we do need to be having conversations where people ask, how are you? Have the opportunity to say how we’re really doing. And that means time. Time means diaries out, doing things together, serving together, going on holiday together, doing cyfa adventures together. You know? Let’s keep on promoting CYFAR Ventures in this podcast. It just means a whole host of things.
Adam Curtis:
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that actually it also requires us to work on our pride. I can be frustrated with people. I’m like, why don’t I have more honest and open friendships or deeper friendships? Or am I being honest and open? And actually, am I just trying to present the best version of myself? Or am I actually being honest about what’s going on in my head and my heart? If we start with ourselves and we’re the ones who are open, honest with others, then it sort of creates an invitation to ask them to do the same with us.
Ed Shaw:
And I think an open honesty that doesn’t require progress, because there are some things I’m getting better at. There are some times I’m actually, you know, things are changing in my life for the better. But actually a lot of the things that I struggled with as a teenager, I’m still struggling with today. And actually, I think sometimes we’re good at sort of openness and accountability, that wonderful Christian word that comes with results when we can tell a story that, oh, actually, yeah, it’s got much better, or I haven’t done that for a while. What we’re less good at is just the sort of the godlike patience of, yeah, just worth you knowing that I did that again last Thursday, or I’m still struggling with this and the person that can get alongside of us and be like Jesus with us, say anything that needs to be said, or sometimes not say anything, but just continue to love us and pray for us and help us in any way that they can. Just tying with what you said about pride, I think we need to be open and honest, but we need to be open without demanding change, because I think sometimes what stops us just embarrassing to say that that happened again. I’ve done it again. Or I said that again, or I went there again.
Adam Curtis:
Oh, that’s so helpful. So why’s your fourth area, which you touched on in your book editor was on creation. Now, this seems very different from intimacy with God, ourselves and others. How can we have intimacy, connection with creation?
Ed Shaw:
We’re creatures and God has put us in a beautiful creation, and he wants us to enjoy it. And he’s made us to look after it and care for it and develop it. Part of being human is to be a creature in his creation and to get creative. It’s just all about being human. It’s all about being his children. It’s all about being what we’re designed to do. And yet it’s always that end of my answer. Really. We can move on. But but otherwise, I just want to sort of say that what I love about, I mean, about all four things, the intimacy in each of these four areas is they all reinforce each other. And I think, again, one of the great issues I’ve had in my life is I’ve concentrated on one in isolation from the others. So I thought, I really need to have a better relationship with God. And I thought that the only way of doing that is locking myself in a room with a thick NIV study Bible and trying to pray. And actually, what I want to say is that, you know, my relationship with God, my intimacy with God is best, best, and enjoyed most when I’m also enjoying deep connection myself, or when I’m in the company of other people because I’m useless at concentration in prayer about myself, for instance, or when I’m in creation.
Ed Shaw:
God has put us into a beautiful world where we are supposed to be tripping over things, sometimes quite literally every day that point us to him and that help us grow in our appreciation of him. All the illustrations as to who God is and are are out there for us to enjoy. You know, the sun rises in the morning and that’s meant to point us to him. You know, Bristol, drive through the Clifton Gorge and you see the rocks. And I’m trying to I’m supposed to be reminded of how firm a foundation God is. Basically, creation has got all these things that are designed to help me in my relationship with God. Intimacy with creation is basically inhabiting the world that God’s given us, seeking to improve the world that God’s given us in a way that points me to him and hopefully points other people to him too.
Adam Curtis:
There’s a really large house near where I live. I love walking by this house or cycling by this house. And as I look at it, this beautiful home with many, many rooms, it reminds me that I have a room in heaven in my father’s home. And it’s something very physical which is drawing me to something very spiritual.
Ed Shaw:
We worked our way through reminders like that, and I love those links we can build up. Tish Warren, in her book liturgy of the ordinary, just has this really sort of simple thing of she makes her bed in the morning and just reminds herself that one day God’s going to remake this world, and it’s just a little habit that she’s got into, which I’ve now got into of bed in the morning. God’s gonna one day remake this world. And just those little connections that’s a human made up, one which can build on all the other ones that God’s given us himself, like a big house. And you know, in my father’s house are many rooms. Adam and I were away with a group of friends last week in a rather nice house, and I sat in the main room of the rather nice house with a friend, playing some very beautiful piano music in the background, thinking this will be what it would like to be a new creation. To be in my father’s house with friends around me and somebody playing the piano rather nicely in the corner.
Adam Curtis:
How did you land on these four areas of God, ourselves, others and creation?
Ed Shaw:
Well, basically, I think probably about 20 years ago, I was working with students in Bristol, and I had a student who was completely and utterly addicted to internet pornography, and I was trying to help him break that addiction. And I was also living with my own addictions and idolatry. And so I was sort of trying to help him with things that I learned myself. And I was getting him to sort of know when that addiction felt most powerful. And when that addiction felt less powerful and I was thinking about myself and my own struggles with idolatry and sin, whatever you call it, trying to think through, when do I muck up? When do I most live the life that God intended me to live? And I just noticed in his life and my life patterns when I felt deeply connected with God, when I felt deep connection with myself, when I felt I was really enjoying intimacy with others, when I’d been out about in creation, when I’d been enjoying God’s creation, when I’d been being creative myself, life was better. And I noticed that in this friend as well. And I just began to use these four things to sort of assess how my life was going,
Ed Shaw:
to assess how other people’s lives were going to Pastor people. Just as a pastor, so often you know the dangers. I think I can solve everything with just a Bible verse, you know, and actually recognising we’re much more sophisticated than that. I can remember having a pastor or meeting with somebody, which was very short because his life was in a mess. I think he wanted, and I wanted to sort of give him a Bible study that would solve everything. I just ended up saying to him about five minutes in, I said, when was the last time you had a holiday? And he said, A year and a half ago. And I said, okay, we’re just going to stop this. You just need to go and have a holiday. You need to just spend some time with God, with yourself, with other people and creation. I think it’s going to solve all the problems we’re talking. You’ve just talked about the last five minutes. Let’s meet up in a few weeks. But I’m only meeting up with you when you’ve had a holiday. It’s one of those sort of gutsy, pastoral moments which afterwards, you think, did I really say that? I probably should have just done a Bible study.
Ed Shaw:
But, you know, we’re creatures that are meant for all these four things. And just sometimes what we need to do is just get on and enjoy all these four things. And I’ve just found them again and again, true of me, true of others. And to assess life. For instance, I’m really good at global, so I have a bad day or something goes wrong, or I muck up again and I globalise and everything’s disastrous and I just need to go back to and think, Ed when was the last time you really enjoyed God? When was the last time you really enjoyed yourself? When was the last time you really enjoyed others? When did the When’s the last time you enjoyed creation? You know, if I’m thinking it’s quite a long time in some of those categories or in all of those categories, that’s what’s gone wrong. I don’t need to globalise. I don’t need to start questioning God’s goodness. I just need to actually get on and do and enjoy all the good things he’s given me. And even as I say that out loud now, I know that that’s something that I need to do right now.
Adam Curtis:
I hear that I’m an extreme extrovert. As an extreme extrovert, I can handle a few hours by myself. But if I know that I’ve got a day by myself, for example, then I can’t even handle those few hours. And as the day goes on, I start just to feel dread. And the question, as you’ve already highlighted it, which I come to, is like, Does God actually not love me? And he’s God actually not good. And it is just ludicrous because actually, what I need to do in those moments is good self-care and actually ring up a friend, go for a walk, enjoy nature, arrange to see someone, and actually embrace the wonderful good gifts that God has given me above all the wonderful, good gift of a relationship with him. It does immediately change things and it changes our perspective even on him.
Ed Shaw:
And that’s great because that’s an example of intimacy with yourself, isn’t it? You know, you’re an extreme extrovert. You know, you need that information to be a happy Adam Curtis, to help Adam Curtis be all that God wants you to be. You know, I need to know that I catastrophize you know, I need to know that, you know, I have a messiah complex because not all the getting to know yourself is good stuff. You know, my mom recently said, have you walked past a problem which you didn’t think you could solve? And I thought, nope.
Adam Curtis:
Wow.
Leah Sax:
I know. Aren’t mothers.
Ed Shaw:
Great? Yeah, they are good.
Leah Sax:
My mother prays regularly for my humility.
Ed Shaw:
Yeah. That’s right. And that’s the other thing, isn’t it? Again. And that illustrates the point is you really enjoy intimacy with yourself. You need intimacy with others because it will be other people that point out, you know what you’re like. I need people to say, you know, and actually just sharing that fact that I’ve got a messiah complex means that, you know, I was sitting with a friend of mine recently and we were talking about something and he said, Ed, this isn’t a problem for you to solve. And I was because I was already sitting there thinking, hmm, I wonder what I could do about this. And it was really good to have somebody say, stop it now. Stop it.
Adam Curtis:
I feel like this episode has already been very practical and very real, but let’s just look at a few examples and apply this teaching on intimacy into those examples. So let’s take an individual. Let’s say they’re yearning for a relationship. They’re struggling with their singleness. How does this teaching on intimacy help that individual?
Ed Shaw:
It should hopefully help that individual to think that the answer to their intimacy deficit is not to get married, because that’s what most people think. And that’s often the advice that will be given. I can remember, you know, talking with friends of mine when I was really struggling with an intimacy deficit, and basically the only piece of advice they could come up with was get married. And the fact that I was same sex attracted meant that was not particularly helpful piece of advice from within the Christian worldview, but it was the only piece of advice that they had. I wanted to say to people who just are receiving that sort of advice, or live in that sort of Subculture. You don’t have to get married to enjoy intimacy. There are loads of different ways in which you can be who God wants you to be, and you can enjoy deep connection with God, yourself, others, and creation. So basically, the answer is not just marriage. You know, one of the most dangerous lies out there. Well, I think, yeah, is that marriage equals intimacy. So many marriages I know collapse because that has been exposed as a lie. And people thought it would do everything and it hasn’t done everything.
Adam Curtis:
Let’s completely twist it to a very different individual. Let’s take that busy parent. So they’ve got small children. They’re up late at night looking after the kids. They’ve also got an intense job. They’re trying to pay off the mortgage. Like life just is hard and a bit all consuming. How does this teaching of intimacy, how does it help this individual?
Ed Shaw:
Oh, I just heard a bit of an example earlier this week of you’re a busy parent and you’re sitting listening to this podcast with a child who’s snuggled up on your lap crying, and you’re thinking, haven’t got any time to do any of this. In that moment, you’ve got a chance. Snuggled up to you crying. You are sitting in God’s lap and you can snuggle up to him and you can bring your tears to him. You’ve got a little picture there of your relationship with God and the intimacy that he desires, that he wants that you have with him. Life as a parent. Life is just one of constant reminders of God’s love for you. When your child is having an absolute tantrum in a supermarket and you’re in that moment where you want the ground to swallow you up, or everybody else is walking past you judging you, God is just so patient with you, and when you have tantrums, he responds in love and grace. As you struggle to respond in love and grace, you perhaps don’t respond in love with grace. Just remind yourself that God responds in love and grace to you. Busy parent. Just. Just think of all the sort of moments you’re getting to remind yourself of God’s love for you in the busyness of life. And a profession in the world is just trying to think of the small little reminders you can give yourself. So for me, yeah, making my bed in the morning, God’s going to remake the world. Driving past the house that you always want to live in. What’s the new heavens and new earth going to be like? Try and find the small little reminders of the gospel that are going to connect into your daily life. So basically connecting the gospel with habits that we already have.
Adam Curtis:
How does this teach you on intimacy? Help that individual who is just feeling that their relationship with the Lord is hard. It feels challenging. They’ve been walking with the Lord for a long time, but they’re just they’re feeling a bit desperate and the whole relationship just feels quite distant.
Ed Shaw:
What’s the few things, you know, I think, am I trying to have a relationship with God? Am I trying to do my relationship with God in a way that works for other people? That doesn’t work for me would be one question. Another question would be, am I trying to do my relationship with God by myself too much? Actually, am I an extrovert who needs to do my relationship with God much more in the company of others? Am I somebody that is trying to run a relationship with God by sitting in the corner of a room? And actually, I need to go out in creation. I need to enjoy it. So basically just think, am I using these other things that are meant to fuel my relationship with God in the right way. I think there are too many people who are trying to do their relationship with God in a way that works for a few key Christian leaders who have written about this, rather than actually what might work in particular for them. You know, we need to all be talking more about different ways of relating to God based on the different personalities and circumstances he’s put us in. Yes, there’s so many young moms that I know have a massive crisis because they used to have great quiet times. They now don’t, and they think their relationship with God and they just need to learn a new way of doing it. Or so many people are intimidated by the person that gets up and translates the Bible into Greek, and then into Hebrew, and then into Aramaic before they have breakfast. And, you know, there’s one person in a generation that does that. We’ve just got to learn our way of being in a deep relationship with God.
Adam Curtis:
What an episode I feel like I want to spend a long time thinking and reflecting just on the answer to that last question, which Ed gave us about what it means to have intimacy with God when you’re really struggling. And actually, it is so true, isn’t it, that we just slightly have this image of what an intimate relationship with God looks like. And if we don’t fit that image, we think it’s all falling apart and it’s not falling apart. And actually, we’ve got to think about it as actually, okay, let’s have intimacy with ourselves and understand ourselves so that we can have a closer walk with God. Oh, that is just so much there.
Leah Sax:
I’ve got so many notes. I make notes as we do our podcast, and one phrase I wrote down, we’ve got to experience something that is already there on a plate for us. And I was like, oh yeah, there’s all this goodness, all this, these gifts, all this love, and it’s there for us on a plate. And what do we do with it? Not gonna lie, I also liked his whole soliloquy on I Can’t take my eyes off of you.
Adam Curtis:
I thought you would. I thought you would.
Leah Sax:
It was wonderful. And it was just so refreshing. Because in God’s goodness, you can see the ed to get. You know, we don’t normally talk about the guests so much as what they say is that he is a pastor who’s lived with people and seen the experience of that, that wisdom God has given him. That God given wisdom is so helpful when he applies this, this Bible language of intimacyw
Leah Sax:
Ed Shaw thank you so much for being our guest today. Our season seven bonus question is, can you tell us about a person God has used to shape your faith?
Ed Shaw:
I can talk about a friend of mine who went to be with Jesus last July, and I always say to people at the end of conversations, keep going. You know, as she was dying of cancer, we realised that that didn’t quite work pastorally. And so I started to say, keep crawling because that’s what it was. And then we got to the stage when she couldn’t even crawl. And I remember having a conversation with her just saying, you just need to let Jesus carry you home. And just that conversation and just seeing her move through those last stages of life to that moment when Jesus did carry her home, and to see her so openly and in such raw ways, to express how painful and difficult that was was just so good for me. We think death is a triumphant procession, and it wasn’t that it was horrible. It was a long, slow defeat as cancer killed her. But it was lovely to think we need to keep on keeping growing, to keep crawling. And then just that stage of, you’ve just got to let Jesus pick you up and carry you home. I hope I respond when the time comes for me in the way that she responded this summer.
Leah Sax:
Thank you so much to Ed Shaw for being our guest on episode 32 of Delight Podcast. Next week we have Debs Prisk talking on the topic of Spiritual Battles (2) – the world, the flesh and the devil. This is Leah and Adam delightfully signing off. Bye bye.
Adam Curtis:
Goodbye.
Delight Podcast 