When I think about what is at the heart of intimacy, I think about time. Recently, I heard a pastor and friend say, “Quality time is a false construct. Quality time can only be measured in quantity time.” For some reason, those words truly stuck with me.

Looking back on my life, I remember when my father and I had a very frayed relationship.

I was always drawn to my mother. She was kind and gentle. She was never short on showing me affection or concern. I was what most affectionately call a “momma’s boy.”

But as I was nearing high school, I struggled mightily with behavioral issues—especially at school. I had four teachers, and all but one were female. And I don’t know why—but looking back on it now, I only struggled with behavior in the classes led by women. That may be largely due to my relationship with my mom, and the feeling that I could get away with anything when it came to her. I did not have behavioral issues in the class of my one male teacher. And that is likely due to my dad.

My dad was a preacher. He was confident and worked hard and long hours. For the first time in our lives, he had a good job providing a life for us where we didn’t feel poor. This was all around the time when cell phones became people’s primary phones and when laptop computers started pulling people away from their desktops. He was a hard-working Christian leader. We knew he loved us. That was never a question. However, he spent most of his time around the house sitting in his chair with his laptop in front of his face. He stopped shooting hoops with me and throwing the football around the yard. It was hard to get him to move the car out of the way of my basketball hoop in the driveway—which only would have taken about 30 seconds. So, I learned how to put the car in neutral and push it out of the way. I had made the mistake more than once of hitting the car by accident. Which never made him very happy.

He could get loud and angry. When things didn’t go as he desired, he would often get so angry and yell so loud that he would frighten my mom, sister, and me. We did everything we could to ensure we did not upset Dad. On the occasions when we did something that we knew would upset him—mostly things that were seen as sinful in our house—we would try to hide those things. But not everything we tried to hide was sinful. Sometimes, they were just honest mistakes. Still, we just hid things that we knew would disappoint him. Including our lack of achievements.

If we didn’t perform well in a subject—we just tried to ensure he didn’t know about that. And in those days, I was not performing well. My mom would help me hide bad grades. But it didn’t matter. Those bad grades led to not enjoying school. I didn’t get compliments from my teachers because I wasn’t a good student. So, I would act out. At least that would make me popular with my friends. However, I would never dream of misbehaving in a class with a male as my teacher.

Soon enough, due to my bad grades and bad behavior, my teachers called my dad at home…every day. It didn’t take long for my dad to get tired of that and remove me from public school.

I was told to go to the principal’s office. There my dad was waiting for me. He explained that he had “checked me out” of school, and we were going to go get all my books and turn them back into my teachers. I cleaned out my locker in tears. I walked shamefully to each class and said goodbye to my classmates and teachers. When we arrived home—every item from my room—my bed, my dressers, my posters that hung on the walls, my clothes from the closet, my stereo—everything was on the front lawn. My dad told me that if I was going to live in his house, I was going to have to change.

I never even thought about running away like I am sure some kids would have. I just went and picked up my stuff off the lawn and moved everything back into my room. And change—I did.

However, much of that change was not just due to the new environment and having a fear of making the wrong moves. Much of that change was because I spent all day every day with my dad. We would wake up and have breakfast together. We would then work together. Me on school work and him on church work. I would go to his office with him if he had meetings. We did everything together. When spring rolled around and baseball season came around, we would leave the house around 1 pm, head over to Wake Forest University, and watch baseball games together. We would go to the batting cage or pitching lesson. Something was changing in me because I didn’t just know intellectually that my dad loved me—I was experiencing it. A deep and intimate relationship began forming with my dad—one still powerful today.

Although there is a lot to unpack within the dynamics of my childhood and the relationships that I have had with my parents—especially regarding attachment patterns. I find it interesting that my lack of ability to behave acceptably as a young boy caused my dad to intervene and get involved more deeply in my life. It became an every minute of everyday relationship for a long time after that. Not because I was somehow righteous but because I wasn’t.

At first, when I was pulled from school, I chose to live the way I did because I didn’t want to be kicked out of my house. I didn’t want to find another place to live. So, I wouldn’t do anything that could lead to that end. My behavior was a response to fear. At first!

However, as my time with my father began to grow—my behavior became a response to his love. I chose to live a life worthy of being his son because I started to experience and know his love more profoundly and deeply. Profoundly and deeply enough to know that if I did make a mistake, lacked achievement, failed, sinned, or did anything that would disappoint my dad—I no longer questioned that he would love me all the same.

As I have tapped into deeper levels of intimacy with God that allow me to feel safe and at home with him, I have realized some of these same things.

At first, I often find it difficult, given my shortcomings, failures, and lack of achievements, to think that I am safe in God’s love. It is hard when I fail to “perform well” for him. It is hard not to feel like an immense failure when the sin patterns of my life continue to rear their ugliness. It is hard to feel like God is disappointed with me to the point that he might just throw me out of his house. Yet, much like I was given the grace to experience love from my dad—I have come to realize that the more time I spend with God, the more I experience his love as well. An intimacy is cultivated in quantity time, which makes it quality time. And that quality time is a breeding ground for intimacy with God. An intimacy afforded me because of his gracious act of coming to get involved in the mess of my life instead of a well-organized life to find his pleasure.

He takes pleasure in me and his children because we are just that—his children. As I surrender to his love—I surrender to trying to build, create, manage, or manipulate the circumstances of life and ministry in such a way as to reap his blessing. I surrender to fear-driven effort and move into grace-driven effort. His love and grace are a blessing in and of themselves. Only when I see them and respond to them as such will true blessing follow me all the days of my life.

As I accept them, I open my hands and let go of the other things I am clinging to. As my open hands connect to his open hands extended toward me, I realize I am in the hands of a loving father who teaches me how to walk and directs me down the paths I should go. Not only that—but he is my help to keep me upright when those paths get rough and rocky. In this, he has become my hope and strength. Maybe this is what Paul means when he speaks of His power being made perfect in our weakness.

The sad reality amidst all of this is that I am not sure most Christians take the opportunity to have a quantity of time with God in a way that leads to intimacy that helps us to stay rooted in His unconditional love. Many of us—like the people of Israel from the Old Testament—are more focused on other things. We chase after those things, and we find it increasingly difficult to see and experience God’s love. As those things lead us further into sin, guilt, and shame, we move further from this experience that God has made available to us in Christ.

The people of God must realize that Christ is the expression of God coming to get involved in our mess so that we can grow a deep and intimate relationship with him in the here and now. Jesus’s death on the cross opens the door to the Father’s house. We don’t have to make some long trek back. We just have to choose to be at home with God. Christ has given us access to the house. Our room in the Father’s house has been bought and paid for. We have to choose not to run away—but take our place in his house and spend every possible moment of every day with him. This is what it means to be at home with God.

The more we take advantage of the quantity of time we have available, the more that becomes quality time. The more quality time we experience, the more we realize—that we live every waking moment of our day with God. There comes a time—when we give ourselves to this kind of relationship with God—every moment of our lives, we talk to him and listen to his voice. There comes a time when every moment is lived as an act of worship to his grace. There comes a time when we have such intimacy with him that we know there will never be a moment when we feel far from him for the rest of our lives.

It is our surrendering again and again to the unconditional love of God that helps us to see we do not have to wait any longer for heaven to arrive because it is a reality in the here and now.