Sacred Attachment

1. The "Delta Variable" Reveals the Gap Between Belief and Experience

Regardless of the set of issues or contextual convictions in individual lives, the common denominator is a disconnect between what they believe (or once believed) and what they experience.

The universal struggle. Many individuals, even successful Christian leaders, confess a profound disconnect between their intellectual belief in God and their actual experience of His presence or love. This "delta variable" represents the gap between the promised abundant life and the reality of disappointment, emptiness, and shame. It's a widespread, often secret, struggle that leads people to question their faith or walk away from the church.

Dysfunctional approaches. This gap is often exacerbated by "dysbeliefs"—flawed belief systems that attempt to force God into a logical, geometric box. These include:

• Moralism: Believing that behaving and obeying the right things earns God's favor.
• Theologism: Focusing on having the "right" theology above all else.
• Supernaturalism: Preoccupation with signs, wonders, and miracles as proof of faith.
• Emotionalism: Manipulating feelings to reflect expected spiritual "fruit."
• Church helpism: Ceaseless serving as a measure of worth.
  These approaches, while not inherently bad, become problematic when they replace genuine relationship and experience.

A new delta. The author proposes another meaning for "delta": the confluence of a river and the sea, where two realities seamlessly become one. This journey from delta as distance to delta as union is possible when we acknowledge our brokenness not as a barrier, but as a bridge to God. It's about aligning the truth of our experience with what we actually believe, cultivating a "Jesus-shaped spirituality" that embraces our full humanity.

2. Our Childhood Attachment Styles Shape Our Relationship with God

Our attachment style (the degree to which we’ve been seen, soothed, safe, secure) not only shapes our human relationships; it also determines how we experience being seen, soothed, safe, and secure with God.

The Four Ss. Our fundamental human needs—to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure—are wired into our DNA from birth. The consistency and adequacy with which these needs are met by primary caregivers establish our attachment style, influencing how we relate to the world and others.

• Seen: Feeling understood, accepted, and delighted in for who we are.
• Soothed: Receiving comfort and care when distressed, learning healthy self-soothing.
• Safe: Being protected from harm, experiencing repair after conflict, having clear boundaries.
• Secure: Internalizing "Love has me," trusting caregivers, and confidently exploring the world.

Impact on divine trust. If these foundational needs were unmet in childhood, it becomes incredibly difficult to experience God as someone who can truly see, soothe, and keep us safe and secure. Our early relational patterns create neural pathways that dictate how we perceive and interact with divine love. This often leads to an "inability to vulnerably receive" God's love.

Earned secure attachment. The good news is that insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, ambivalent) can be rewired into "earned secure attachment" in adulthood. This process begins by examining the assumptions handed down by family and culture, recognizing how our past conditioning impacts our present ability to trust. Just as Peter resisted Jesus washing his feet, we often resist receiving God's intimate love due to our ingrained patterns of self-reliance or fear of vulnerability.

3. Redefining Sin: We Are Broken, Not Fundamentally Bad

What if instead of viewing yourself as fundamentally sinful, you recognized your longings and needs (those Four S s again) as good and holy and your failures, weaknesses, mistakes, and yes, even addictions as attempts to meet those needs based on how they have gone unmet in your life?

The "Five Ws" of brokenness. Our struggles, often labeled as "sin," are better understood as mishandling our brokenness, which stems from five interconnected aspects of the human condition:

• Wretchedness: Being "homeless" or exiled from love, wandering because we haven't felt securely attached.
• Weakness: Our innate human limitations and vulnerabilities, which we often hide, preventing us from being fully known and loved.
• Woundedness: Traumas (both "small t" and "large T") from things done to us or things that should have happened but didn't.
• Warfare: The lies and deception from an accuser that target our identity and God's trustworthiness.
• Wiring: Our neural networks, shaped by genetics and life experiences, which create default patterns of thought and behavior.

Beyond punishment. Sin isn't primarily about God's punishment for disobedience; it's the natural consequence of disconnecting from the source of life. When we choose autonomy and pull the plug on spiritual life support, death is the outcome. Salvation, then, is getting "plugged back in," trusting that in God's care, we are seen, soothed, safe, and secure.

Compassion over condemnation. This reframing allows us to approach our "sins" with compassion and grace, recognizing them as attempts to meet legitimate, God-given needs. An addiction to food might stem from childhood trauma, adultery from loneliness, or worship of success from deprivation. Jesus, kneeling beside the author in an adult bookstore, offered compassion, not condemnation, for his pain-driven behavior, shifting the understanding from depravity to brokenness.

4. Evil Thrives on Lies About God and Our True Identity

Evil always seeks to destroy beauty and goodness with two lies—by deceiving us about who God is and who we are.

The enemy's strategy. Evil is not just abstract; it's a destructive force that targets our core identity and our relationship with God. It operates through subtle deception, aiming to convince us of two fundamental falsehoods:

• "You can't trust God to meet your needs."
• "It's up to you to meet your own needs because God won't come through."
  These lies fuel every sin and destructive behavior, creating a cycle of self-reliance and isolation.

Jesus in the desert. The temptations of Jesus in the desert perfectly illustrate evil's tactics. The devil challenged Jesus's identity ("If you are the Son of God..."), offered false soothing (turning stones to bread), false safety (jumping from the temple), and false security (worldly power). Jesus countered each lie with truth, demonstrating that living in the power of truth sets us free from deception.

Spinning in place. Addiction, a key manifestation of evil's influence, is described as "spinning in place"—a desperate attempt to find comfort, distraction, or pleasure when life feels overwhelming. This "one-sided relationship" promises much but ultimately takes everything, leaving us further from home. Evil exploits our woundedness and weakness, offering temporary relief that ultimately deepens our self-exile from love.

5. Embodied Spirituality Connects Us to Our Whole Selves and God

The body is the context in which the spirit operates. We cannot separate the spiritual and the emotional. God is certainly both.

The holistic soul. For centuries, Western Christianity has often adopted a dualistic view, separating the spiritual from the physical and emotional, leading to a fragmented understanding of the human soul. However, the ancient Hebrew concept of nephesh (soul) encompasses the mind, emotions, will, and body. This holistic view is crucial for connecting with God and experiencing shalom (wholeness).

The body keeps the score. Trauma, whether "small t" or "large T," is not just a past event; it leaves an imprint on the mind, brain, and body. Our bodies store the impact of traumatic experiences, manifesting physically (migraines, digestive issues, muscle spasms) when there's a disconnect between our beliefs and reality. The body acts as a "truth teller," revealing unprocessed experiences and dissonance.

Good is better than perfect. This embodied understanding challenges the pursuit of "perfection" as a static, sinless state. Instead, it aligns with the Hebrew concept of "good"—dynamic, fertile, and continually growing wholeness. Jesus's command to "be perfect" (Matthew 5:48) is better understood as "be whole," inviting us into an integrated state where all parts of ourselves, even the contradictory and problematic, are welcomed and transformed by God's Spirit.

6. Holiness is Wholeness: God's Gravitational Love Draws Us In

As I see it, holiness is all about wholeness and best viewed by reflecting on the divine love revealed in the person of Jesus.

Beyond centrifugal spirituality. Our traditional understanding of God's holiness often creates distance, portraying it as an unattainable ideal that repels our sinful nature. This leads to "centrifugal spirituality," where we ceaselessly strive to get closer but feel pushed away. Instead, God's holiness is a "spiritual gravity" that pulls us closer, inviting surrender to His love.

Jesus redefines holiness. The scene of Jesus with the woman caught in adultery (John 8) powerfully illustrates God's holiness. Instead of condemnation, Jesus offered grace, seeing her wounds and offering soothing, safety, and security. He disarmed her accusers by redirecting their attention to their own sin, revealing a holiness that is relational, gravitational, and focused on restoration rather than legalistic judgment.

"Go and sin no more" as "be restored." Jesus's command to the woman, "Go and sin no more," isn't a demand for instant perfection, but an invitation to "be restored and no longer broken." Holiness, in this context, is about wholeness—a dynamic process of living in union with the God who looks like Jesus. It's about accepting that God the Father loves us as much as He loves Jesus, regardless of our flaws.

7. Being Known: Our Deepest Desire and Greatest Fear

Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

The shame of hiddenness. Our deepest desire is to be known and loved, yet our greatest fear is the rejection that might come with true vulnerability. Shame, born from the false belief that we are defective and unlovable, whispers that being known is dangerous. This leads us to wear masks, curate our image, and hide our weaknesses, creating a "hide-and-seek" style of relating.

Childhood roots of shame. Early in life, children learn to stop trying to be known if their caregivers are busy, distracted, or critical. They internalize shame for wanting too much attention, leading to patterns of withdrawing or demanding attention. Love becomes conditional on performance or conformity, reinforcing the belief that "love has me... if."

The hope in vulnerability. Overcoming the weight of shame requires courageous vulnerability. Sharing our deepest fears, financial struggles, or body image insecurities with trusted individuals, as the author did, can lead to profound healing. When we risk being known and are met with compassion rather than judgment, it dispels the lies of shame and opens the door to authentic intimacy—where "all of you welcomes all of me and all of me welcomes all of you."

8. Mysticism is Essential for Experiencing Spiritual Oneness with God

The devout Christian of the future will either be a “mystic,” one who has experienced “something,” or he will cease to be anything at all.

Beyond intellectual understanding. The author's journey revealed that an intellectual, academic approach to God, while valuable, cannot substitute for direct experience. Mysticism, defined as "spiritual breathing for the soul," is the necessary path to deep, personal intimacy with God, embracing the "mystery of faith." It's about experiencing God, not just knowing about Him.

Three ways of knowing God. Meister Eckhart described three paths to experiencing God:

• Through our five senses: Glimpsing God's presence in nature, human connection, and everyday pleasures.
• Through intellectual pursuit: Learning about God's intricate creation through science, theology, and reason.
• Through spiritual union: Uniting our spirit with the divine Spirit, activating the "divine spark" within, beyond ego and rationale.
  All three are conduits for fulfilling Jesus's command to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, making mysticism inherently practical.

Holy hide-and-seek. God's "hiddenness" is not meant to distance us, but to draw us into faith. Analogies like a baby in the womb, staring into blinding light, or the deepening intimacy of human relationships suggest that fully comprehending God might overwhelm our human capacity. Mysticism embraces this tension, offering "trail markers" rather than precise answers, inviting us into a unique, subjective, and experiential encounter with the divine.

9. Imagination: The Portal to Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.

Sidelined but vital. For centuries, the imagination has been sidelined in Christian faith, sublimated to intellect and willpower, deemed too subjective or dangerous. However, the Christian faith relies on the invisible, and the imagination is the "portal to the divine," allowing us to "see with the eyes of the heart." It's how we grasp reality beyond our physical senses.

Reclaiming the sacred imagination. Relying solely on rational, logical comprehension fails to engage our full humanity and spirituality. C.S. Lewis, initially an atheist, found that his imagination, once dismissed as "imaginary," became a powerful conduit for truth, revealing God's kingdom through fantastical stories. Reclaiming our imagination means becoming "like little children," open to possibilities and not limited by tangible evidence.

Fueled by beauty and suffering. The imagination is most powerfully fueled by beauty and suffering, which "pierce the human heart."

• Beauty: From the Grand Canyon to a baby's coo, beauty arrests our attention and evokes emotion, nourishing our imagination.
• Suffering: Ordinary and extraordinary suffering, like anxiety or loss, also demands our attention, often leading us to seek counterfeits if not harnessed to God.
  The cross of Christ, uniting brutality and beauty, injustice and grace, is the ultimate example of how imagination allows us to grasp profound truths.

10. Spiritual Practice is About Being Present, Not Just Doing

Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort.

Practices, not disciplines. The author prefers "practices" over "disciplines" because the latter often implies punitive obligation or performance. Spiritual practices are an ongoing process of becoming awake and alive, cultivating God's presence, and embracing our humanity. They are less about doing something to earn favor and more about being present.

Brother Lawrence's example. The 17th-century monk, Brother Lawrence, demonstrated that every mundane activity—peeling potatoes, stirring soup—can be an opportunity to attune oneself to God's presence. His "Practice of the Presence of God" teaches that it doesn't matter what you do, but how aware you are of God while doing it. Practice is about showing up and being mindful of God in every moment.

The ICARE practice. To facilitate this presence, the author recommends the ICARE practice, a simple method for self-attunement and connection with God:

• Inquire: "What's here right now?" (sensing, feeling, experiencing).
• Center: "Be here right now." (dropping down to your physical, spiritual, emotional reference point).
• Accept: "Welcome what's here." (without judgment or shame).
• Remain: "Stay right here." (continuing to be present, even with discomfort).
• Empathize: "Be kind to what's here." (cultivating self-compassion and acceptance).
  These practices help us "be still and be loved," reinforcing our secure attachment to God's unconditional love.

11. Overflow: Vulnerability Opens Us to God's Extravagant Love

Love cannot be internalized until it is metabolized.

From stopping sludge to drinking living water. Early in his faith, the author focused on "screwing down the spigot of sludge"—eliminating bad habits and temptations. This "dirty-water-off mindset" led to spiritual dehydration and burnout. The shift came from opening the "flow valve" to a fountain of living water, focusing on God's goodness and unlimited, unconditional love.

Metabolizing love. Just as our bodies metabolize food, we metabolize love when we allow it to fill us repeatedly, cleansing wounds, quenching thirsts, and saturating us with the Spirit. Healing from trauma increases our capacity for attachment, enabling us to trust that "love has me." This transforms our needs from dangerous desires into "embodied indicators of the divine in me."

Brokenness as a doorway. Our brokenness, flaws, and failures are not barriers but doorways to experiencing more of God. An "imperishable seed" of love resides within us, and when we clear away the rubble of past hurts, it sprouts and grows, shattering old defenses. This leads to "oneing"—a continuous, secure union with God, where we are seen, soothed, safe, and secure.

Extravagant love. The journey culminates in an "all-and-everything" choice: embracing all parts of ourselves—faithful and unfaithful, loving and doubting—and surrendering to God's extravagant love. This love transforms us from the inside out, causing divine love to "spill out of our brokenness for others to experience." We become conduits of the living water, sharing the eternal source of love with a world in need.