The Bible reflects more than stories of our faith. The narratives connect us intimately with God. Spirituality is not the same as institutionalized religion. Our belief is intimacy with God. Following is a bullet point outline of seven kinds of intimacy found in the book of Genesis 1-3.

Spiritual Intimacy: Genesis 1:1-2 God created…Spirit hovers….

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The Spirit hovers, MRHPHTH,  like a bird cares for its young, like a mother nurtures her child. The Hebrew word is intensive.  (BLB, Genesis 1:2)

Intimacy of Beauty: Genesis 1-2

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

Intimacy of Rest: Genesis 2:2

2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Rest is a common theme throughout the Bible. The down regulation of anxiety through rest is included in the Ten Commandments, the life of Israel, and the teachings of Jesus. Rest, recover, care for the image of God within.

Intimacy of Pleasure: 2:8

8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 

The word Eden means, pleasure. (BLB, Genesis 2)

Intimacy of Compassionate Presence: 2:18

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

The first evil unpacks in the Bible, aloneness, isolation. The Creator God fashions a helper or savior for the male. The word EZER is used of God Himself as helper or savior.

Intimacy of Sexual Health: 2:23

23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”

24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

The first couple is transparent, intimate, and one sexually.

Intimacy of Forgiveness: 3:21

20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

The final act of Genesis 3 is the covering of humankind’s shame. The Creator God sacrifices an animal and makes royal clothing for Adam and Eve. The word for clothing, Kitone, is the same word used for Joseph’s royal robe. (Genesis, 37:3)  The Fall from intimacy with God is corrected by the covering of shame. Good Creator does for humankind what cannot be done by themselves. (Volker, 2020)