August 2
Scripture focus: "You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you." Matthew 5:4 (The Message)
Neil Anderson, author of Victory over the Darkness and The Bondage Breaker once remarked, "When you find that God is all you have, you discover that he is all you need." He continued on with a story that illustrated a time in his life when he and his family lost everything and in the process found their way back to a renewed and refreshed relationship with God.
I love his story. But can I be honest? I don't want to live his story. I do not want to lose things that are dear to me. I want to experience God's embrace, draw near to him, offer myself willingly for his prevailing purposes and be part of his kingdom. But I don't like losing things that are dear to me.
Learning how to live with healthy boundaries helps us differentiate between what is truly dear to us, and what is an unhealthy attachment. I've discovered that some feelings of abandonment, loss, and betrayal are the result of my own lack of clarity about what is truly dear to me. An unhealthy attachment is anything that I believe I need to live independently of God. (Clearly, this is not what I'm actually thinking as I develop an unhealthy attachment – but it is what happens!) This unhealthy attachment can be seemingly small – like believing I need those two cups of java to rev my engine – to something pretty huge – assuming that my life isn't worth living if my children aren't happy, healthy and wise.
According to Cloud and Townsend (Boundaries: When to say yes, when to say no to take control of your life), boundaries define what is me and what is not me. They serve the same purpose that property lines provide – a way for the owner to determine what they are and are not responsible for. I am personally responsible for what happens on my property. I am not responsible for how my children cultivate their property.
Sometimes (and I really hate this because I don't like losing things) we end up losing things that we are unhealthily attached to. And it is in those moments that we find that we are blessed. We discover that we've been trying desperately to hold onto an unhealthy attachment, and this attachment has caused us to grow forgetful of God. When we forget God, we lose our self – the only piece of property we are truly, fully responsible for cultivating. As the author of Ephesians writes, it's only in Christ that we find out who we are and what we're created for – so forgetting God and losing self is a big deal.
I hope I'm clear – I don't like losing stuff I hold dear. But sometimes it's in the losing that we realize that we've gotten off track. God isn't in the business of taking stuff from us just so that we will feel bad and come running to him for comfort. Our heavenly Father is perpetually present for us, eager to embrace us on those occasions that we discover that we have unwittingly (or intentionally) lost our way. We're pretty lucky to have a heavenly Father who never leaves nor forsakes us.
Recommended reading: 2 Samuel 4-6
1 comment:
What I hate to lose most that I hold too dearly is my sense of control over situations in my life. God has been showing me my powerlessness in a variety of ways this week, hoping that I will get the message. It is finally sinking in (for today) that I do not have any control over the people, places and things that I am choosing to worry and vex over.
I find that I am slow to learn and prone to forget.
God knows this about me and has infinite patience in bringing me back to a place of acceptance and to the realization that he is my shepherd and he will always provide for me. When I feel that I am entitled to more than God's provision for my needs (a.k.a. what I want) and I start trying to control situations in my life, I will occasionally get a tap, a nudge and if necessary a bonk to get my attention.
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