Yada Intimately Known

This weeks devotions are shared from week 5 of our Women’s Growth Group where we talked about being intimately known. The Hebrew word is “Yada” and it is used an amazing 940 times in the Old Covenant. It means “to intimately know”. But the Bible also uses the word “bow” for “entering into”, when referring to sex, as well as “shakab” for “to lie with”. Yada is used in an intimate knowing of God as well as in the sexual sense with a mate. It is far beyond an intellectual knowledge, but a deep, experiential knowing. It may seem shocking but rather revealing, that Christ wants to Yada, “to intimately know” us, like a man knows his wife, meaning a deep intimate knowing. A husband and wife can have sex, and never enter into Yada, that deep intimate knowing. They can live in the same house and never reveal their true selves. Never become vulnerable with the other. Always hiding behind a proverbial lock and key, to the real you. Childhood is a pivotal time of everyone’s life. It’s a time that you learn to be free and share (which is rare) or a time to learn to hold back (which is more common). The Lord showed me some years ago that I had learned to hold back because my mother was not open herself, and I could never share with her and discuss things. She did the best she could with the knowledge that she had, but I learned to hide and hold back. If I ever got yada with anyone, they eventually hurt me, or I would for some reason turn on them, and then the cycle of hurt continued and the evasiveness was perpetuated. Even today, I fight the temptation to avoid closeness with anyone, for fear of hurt.

Ask yourself, do you Yada God? Do you have that Yada relationship with Him that He so greatly desires to have with you?

More to come on Yada tomorrow!

 Blessings