“We are daughters and sons of the Most High, yet we search high and low for love, for worth, and for provision. We sit outside the kingdom holding a little tin cup, while the King’s arms are always open. We keep foraging in old locations where we use to find connection.”- Summer Joy Gross
“But surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”- Matthew 28:17 (NIV)
In Chapter 1 (“Your First Attachment Stories”) of The Emmanuel Principle, Summer Joy Gross stresses our need to grow into love before our first reaction to pain is to run home to our Father’s arms. However, first we must wake to the messages already engraved in our brains. Because our preconceived ideas about what love looks like create deep, trenchlike neural pathways. Pathways all other thoughts slide into.
In addition, Summer observes, most of us have attachment wounds. Summer describes these wounds as twisted souvenirs from childhood. These wounds create an insecure attachment that shapes our ability to give and receive love.
Summer continues:
“We may have memorized Scriptures that gave us the correct information, but long before we could grasp the answers, the answers had grasped us. The story of love had already been written. For good or for ill, we lug our attachment wounds into every relationship we enter, even our relationship with God.”
Most of us, Summer notes, have lived as Christ followers for decades, ticking all the boxes. Yet, slowly we’ve downgraded our expectations. And now, even after decades of serving, we feel tired. Furthermore, at best connections feels frayed. And absent at worst. Consequently, we fear Jesus’ promise, “I will be with you always,” represents simply a nicety, a spiritual promise. Instead of a felt reality.
Like the disciples probably felt as they watched Jessu ascend through the clouds, we fear God’s abandoned His adopted sons and daughters.
Today’s question: Do you ever find yourself sitting outside the kingdom holding a little tin cup? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “God’s delight – trivial desire?”