Your greatest need isn’t sex. It’s intimacy

In The Intimacy Deficit, Ed Shaw redefines intimacy as something far deeper than sex – offering a rich, biblically grounded vision of connection with God, self, others and creation. It is a hopeful, practical book a much-needed guide for addressing the relational disconnect so many experience today, says Rachel Bedford

When I received a copy of this book to review, my first reaction was an eye-roll: “Not another Christian book about sex.” However, Ed Shaw’s opening line immediately squashed those assumptions: ”This is not a book about sexuality and/or sex.” Instead, the book centres on a conviction that the “greatest need in life is intimacy - a sense of oneness and connectedness both beyond yourself and within yourself, but not of the sexual kind.”

The thinking and pastoral praxis behind The Intimacy Deficit (InterVarsity Press) has been many years in the making, evidenced in its clear structure and lean writing style. The author has allowed these ideas to shape his own life and ministry, and each chapter beautifully – and challengingly - reveals that despite his celibacy, Shaw leads a deeply intimate life. The book is divided into four distinct sections, each explaining that we need intimacy with God, ourselves, others and creation. Like the very best sermons, for those of us seeking deeper intimacy in our lives, Shaw clearly and biblically explains the why before landing in the how.

 In a masterful expose of his teaching gift, the author suggests we ‘adopt Psalm 23’, walking readers through 14 distinct ways to creatively engage with Scripture to strengthen our intimacy with God. His suggestion that I paint, imagine or update the psalm, inspired me to think far more expansively about the possibilities of my own devotional life.

Shaw’s lived experience, as a single, same-sex attracted man, shapes the book throughout. He writes movingly about people he pastors: “all the big problems people have entrusted me with - their broken relationships, painful loneliness, powerful