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Have you ever looked at a situation you’re facing in utter disbelief and thought, "How will I ever get over this?" Lysa TerKeurst understands. After years of heartbreak and emotional trauma, she realized it’s not about just getting over hard circumstances but learning how to work through what she has walked through. Now, she wants to help you do the same. That’s why Lysa teamed up with her personal, licensed professional counselor, Jim Cress, alongside the Director of Theological Research at Proverbs 31 Ministries, Dr. Joel Muddamalle, to bring you "Therapy & Theology." While Lysa, Jim and Joel do tackle some really hard topics, you’ll soon find they're just three friends having a great conversation and learning from each other along the way.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, I'm really excited about this last episode of the series that we've been doing on self-awareness. And part of the reason I'm so excited about this last episode is because we've been talking a lot about tools: tools of self-examination and self-discovery. And as we dive more into these tools, the goal and hope is that it pushes us more toward God and not away from God. He is the God who made us and knows us better than we could ever know ourselves. So walking in step with Him is crucial. It's the crucial ingredient I think for self-awareness to really flourish. So today we are talking about attachment to God. Why do I believe what I believe, and how does it impact my attachment to God? So, Joel, we're going to really lean into you today. In our last episode, we talked about attachment style with people, and so we felt like it would be really wonderful to talk about our attachment to God.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, I think that's so good. I want to start ... so when we do theology study in general ... so you know this: my area of specialty that I studied for a long time is biblical theology. So the unraveling the story of God from Genesis all the way through Revelation: patterns, themes and things like that. There's another section of theology; it's called systematic theology. And systematic theology takes a look at particular topics or ideas or themes that are present and tries to see how those topics are worked out throughout Scripture. And so I'm going to say something now that might put you a little bit off, but I'm going to back into it a little bit. OK? So here's this thought that God actually is attached to Himself, God is attached to — and I know, Lysa, you're like, "Wait a minute, Joel; we're going to have to pause and reconsider."
Just listen to this. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are a perfect triune community. They're preexistent; they are pre-eternal; they are in beautiful love, in communion with each other. I had a Bible college professor once, and he was trying to help all of us make sense of the Trinity — this idea of the Godhead, that God is one in essence and yet present in three distinct persons. So what does that look like? This is how he would say: If you went to God the Father and you're like, "God the Father, You are crushing it. You created the entire world and the universe through the breath of Your existence." And God the Father would respond and say, "Yeah, but did you know in John 1 that it actually points to the Son." That God the Son is actually sustaining all things and God the Son actually gave up His own life on the cross.
And then if you went to God the Son, and you're like, "God the Son, that's incredible. The cross, that was You." God the Son would be like, "Yeah, but did you pay attention to God the Holy Spirit?" God the Holy Spirit in Luke Chapter 4 is the one who anointed me. This is what Jesus says in Luke 4:18-19, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And this is what Jesus would say. And then if you went to God the Holy Spirit, [and] you're like, "God the Holy Spirit, You must be it. You are crushing it in all fronts." And God the Holy Spirit would be like, "Yeah, but how incredible are God the Son and God the Father and how much they love Him."
We get this sense that in the Godhead ... God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit have perfect attachment, have perfect relationship in and of themselves. And so when we think about attachment theories and self-attachment and all these other things, I think it's a profound concept and a consideration for us to actually know and realize that God Himself is together in perfect relationship. And then Jesus — and I know, Jim, you've got some thoughts on this one — Jesus and the high priestly prayer, His goal, He says, "I long for you." He's talking to His disciples. "I long for you to be one as I and the Father are one" (John 17:21). Right? So there's Jesus's language ... talking about His attachment to God the Father. Jim?
Jim Cress:
First thing I thought honestly is in that attachment statement Jesus made; [it] is what got Him killed.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Jim Cress:
Yeah. It's like, did you just really say that? You didn't; Jesus said that. I love the idea that we are not just the Imago Dei, that we're in the image of God, but we are trinitarian and bearing that and should be in ... an old theological word is “perichoretic.” You can Google it, but the neighborhood, the very nature of God, that perfect relationship that we can be in that. And then we come to the human side and often I have found people on the more anecdotal, clinical side that they will have these glasses right here. Lysa has said before, "I have to have these on all the time." She said in the last taping we did, she said, "Do I put the glasses on or not?" And the reason I'm using that is, is that people will pick up these glasses and say, "I will put them on, but this will be mama and daddy, and I will then look at God as a heavenly version, without even trying, of my mother or my father."
That's why we do this family of origin work back there, and I am transferring stuff onto God and not giving Him His face. Paul Young who wrote The Shack — and that's not a commentary on that; it's just the fact — he said, "I had to continue to unmask God time and time again before I could say, ‘God, this is who You really are.’" And so this “deconstruction” word — don't worry; I won't go too far — is I think there's a healthy deconstruction of sin saying, "Hey, wait a minute."
You might've been, I went to Dallas Seminary, then I was in more of a reformed camp, and I like where I am now, but the idea of just continuing to grow and learn and say, God, who are You really? That was asked through much of the Bible. And so there is a deconstruction I can do there of saying, “Maybe I've just been in this denomination, and I believe this and believe that, or I believe sometimes unhealthy things from ‘the faith of my childhood or the lack of faith.’” People who have all kinds of religions that I've been with and saying, "What is it that you believe?” [Jesus asked] "Who do men say that I am?" "Some say John the Baptist; some say Elijah some say one of the prophets." "Who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:13-15). I like that because Jesus did not ask Peter — You know this; it is in the plural — “Who do y'all say that I am?”
Joel Muddamalle:
The second person plural. Yeah.
Jim Cress:
And that's the question today for the God attachment ... is, hey, as you're watching today, I don't know ... who do you say God is? Who is God to you?
Lysa TerKeurst:
I'll admit when I hear that word “deconstruction,” — we talked about this before.
Jim Cress:
We did.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I'm like, push the brakes because so many times I think that word equates for people reconstruction to the destruction of their faith. And that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about taking apart maybe things that we have believed that were maybe put on us.
Jim Cress:
That's exactly right.
Lysa TerKeurst:
That actually cause us to be resistant to God and taking that stuff off of us so that we can come back to having a better relationship with God.
Jim Cress:
Well, if I use yours, if those are readers, or you use mine, which is a trifocal here — I'm legally blind in my left eye — true. But I have this lens here, if you did this, and there have been people with a trifocal in here that could literally fall down stairs watching it because this lens was not meant for you. And to get my lenses right and say, "God, I want to search" ... and say, "Show me Thy glory. Show me who You are. Who are You, God?"" And not again ... the deconstruction, it just deconstructs down to nothing. I'm just mad. And the religious and church hurt that we all see ... people are like, "Yeah, but the church did this." I go, "Yeah, look what they did to Jesus." But the idea of ... to say, “Where do you want to sit and meet with God” and start at the beginning, wherever that is.
Joel Muddamalle:
That's so good, Jim. And I would say this ... that for the sake of the lens, for the sake of a clear picture of God attachment, I think it is incredibly important that we go back to the reality that God creates ... Think about this. God doesn't create Adam and Eve first and then create everything. What does He do? He creates everything. He creates the systems: the solar systems, the land, the animals, the fruit, the ground, the grass. All of these things are created first. And then, and this is really interesting that the text says that God creates Adam and Eve and then He puts them in Eden, the holy mountain. Now, the Hebrew word for “put” is not the normal Hebrew word for put. It's actually the Hebrew word nuakh, which actually means rest. And so what's actually happening? This is wild. I know, Jim. Hold on.
Jim Cress:
No, no, no. I'm on the edge of my seat here.
Joel Muddamalle:
What's actually ... so I think this is interesting; what God actually does is He takes Adam and Eve and He puts them, He puts humanity, in Eden, not in a position to work for rest but in a posture of rest from which they are to work from. Now, why is this so important to the concept of God attachment? When God places Adam and Eve in Eden, the very first things that they're seeing is the providence of God all around them. They're seeing the trees that are good for their shade. They're seeing the fruit that comes from ... they're seeing animals that are not trying to destroy and kill them. They're seeing the good pleasure of God, the kindness of God, the mercy of God, evidence of God's goodness.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And the provision of God.
Joel Muddamalle:
The provision of God everywhere around them. And so, what better origin story of God attachment could you ask for than Adam and Eve? And then notice what the enemy does. What the enemy does is [he] goes after the attachment that we have to God. "Did God really say? What if you actually could be more than you ought to be?" And then I was having a fantastic conversation about this with ... I've already mentioned her one time, our friend, Shae Tate Hill — I’ve got to slow down every time I do it — Shae Tate Hill —
Lysa TerKeurst:
Because she just got married.
Joel Muddamalle:
She just got married, and then Madi Greenfield, and they helped me think through this. But this is so fascinating. When the enemy takes Jesus ... actually, this is actually even more wild. The Spirit of God —
Jim Cress:
Keep being wild. I love it.
Joel Muddamalle:
— The Spirit of God leads Jesus into the desert actually in Luke 4. So the Spirit of God leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the enemy. And so when the enemy tempts Jesus, what the enemy is trying to do is detach Jesus from the perfect communion with the Godhead that He's already in. It is an echo of the Adam story.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It really is. That's fascinating.
Joel Muddamalle:
Where Adam and Eve fail and they become detached, what Jesus does on the cross is actually provide a way for you and I in our humanity to be reattached to God.
Jim Cress:
Love that.
Joel Muddamalle:
And He mediates that reattachment; He's our faithful High Priest who makes it possible.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It's so good, Joel. And you know what Jesus says over and over and over in the resistance of the enemy and the continued attachment to God: It is written.
Joel Muddamalle:
It is written.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It is written. And I think this is such a big point because if we want to attach to God and make it a more secure attachment rather than an avoidant attachment with God or an anxious attachment with God, I feel like we've got to make peace with the goodness of God. And so many times, we want the goodness of God to be our definition of good. We want the goodness of God to be the outcome that we want. We want the goodness of God ... we want to attach it to: Will God do what I assume a good God should do? Will He really address the wrongs? Will He really make sure that the people who have hurt me ... will He really protect me? Will He really make good from wrong? And I think so many times, we're looking at our circumstances so much and saying, "Do my circumstances line up to ... equal to the goodness of God?" And that's really hard because if that's the lens we're looking through, then we want to attach to God based on Him doing the good things we assume He should be doing for us.
Jim Cress:
That's where I spell God — by the way, right here with you — G-O-D doesn't stand for God-on-demand. We're an on-demand society. You better do it. God, will You do this? It's more I think the demand of: You better do this. You owe it.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So I heard this statement yesterday in a focus group that I was working with, and it was actually Amanda Bacon's sister, and she's in a group where they're all going through a very similar hard thing. And each week, they come together and they're supporting one another, encouraging one another, studying scripture together. But here's what's hard about the group. They're all going through a similar struggle, but they're all having different outcomes. So sometimes it can seem like, "Wow, God is really being good to her because He fixed that. God's really being good to her because wow, look at the miracle there. God's being good to her because wow, look how He provided for her or protected her."
And it can be easy in a group like that to go, "Yeah, but why didn't God do that for me?" And so then it can make you shaky with the goodness of God. But here's what Amanda's sister said. She manages that internally by simply saying, "Wow, her pathway to God's glory is different than mine." We are all headed — if we know God, believe God, and have a right relationship with Jesus Christ — then we are all headed to God's glory. It's just our pathway may be different, but if we want to stay on the pathway to God's glory, then we've got to learn to stay properly attached to God, not based on His activity but based on who He is.
Joel Muddamalle:
And this is so important that God's glory ... you and I, humanity was never designed to be absorbers of God's glory. We cannot absorb the glory of God.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Reflect it.
Joel Muddamalle:
We are designed to be reflectors, agents of reflection of God's glory, that it would come and shine through us onto others. And yeah, I think that's a powerful example.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Good. So, Joel, answer this for me. Let's say we love the Lord. We believe the Lord, we are following heart after the Lord, and yet sometimes in the quietness of our heart, we feel pretty distant from God. And it's not because we have some big Plan B, like I'm going to run away from God. It's simply because we cannot make sense of what He allows. We cannot make sense of what's going on in our life. And we read the Scriptures, and it feels like God has such big promises in the Scripture. So why does it feel like He's not keeping those promises to me?
Joel Muddamalle:
So I'm going to say something ... I want to say it with kindness and with sensitivity because it's a little bit difficult, but just because something is hard to hear doesn't mean that it's not Truth that we need to hear. I think of the Israelites in Egypt. They had been waiting for years for deliverance. They're waiting for years and years and years for God. I promise that I'm going to get you out; I'm going to get you out; I'm going to get you out, and they're not out. And then one day, God makes a way, and there's a whole new generation of Israelites who are about to walk into Canaan, into the promised land. And for them, they're living in the reality of the promise of God. And yet there were generations past of Israelites who did not even experience that goodness. So the principle here that is at play is, sometimes when we are thinking of these things, we're thinking in the context of me, myself and I. We're thinking about my immediate future.
We're thinking about my immediate context, when God is thinking about good for you and I. He's thinking about good in the context of His perfect vision of past, present and future. And so what might feel like the best good for us in our limited understanding might have unknown tragic consequences for us in the future. Well, you and I can't see that, but who does see that? God. He sees it and He looks. And so this is the faithfulness and the kindness of God where we go, "OK, whatever I'm walking through and enduring through right now, the distance that I might feel from God, that distance, it is not evidence of God's negligence or His abandonment."
What this could be is a pause, a moment while we're waiting for His goodness to play out in the future. I was talking to some friends the other day, and I think people get really frustrated when they're in delays. And so I had just this thought: Delays are not evidence of God's denial in our lives. Delays are actually divine redirections wrapped up in a peculiar package of grace. And the peculiarness of the delay is what makes it a God thing because it looks and feels and seems so unexpected, and that's how God works.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I think sometimes we have greater faith in our fears coming true than in God coming through.
Jim Cress:
Yes.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I remember I wrote that in my journal, and I was like, "Oh, I don't really want to admit that." But sometimes I'm more certain that something terrible is going to happen to me than I'll experience God's goodness. And I like that you brought up the children of Israel being delivered. Because recently, I was looking at Instagram and Nikki Koziarz did something that was so fascinating. It was this little clip where she said, "Do you know what manna actually means if you translate the word ‘manna’?" Because of course, manna is ... when the children of Israel [were] in the desert and they needed to eat, God gave them manna rained down from heaven. And she said manna actually means “what is this?” And I was so fascinated.
I think I have thought about that pretty much every day because sometimes, like you said, God's goodness is wrapped in a very peculiar package. And I wonder how many times I have attempted to detach from God because His provision doesn't look at all like I thought it would. And so it's almost like this is God's provision, and I'm like, "What is this?" And yet I think as I walk forward in my life, some of those things, maybe not all, but some of those things, I'll look back and go, "Wow, that was God's perfect provision." And so what I need to do I think in my life is, if I want to have a secure attachment with the Lord, I need to trace His hand of faithfulness going backward in my life because I can't see into the future. But what are those things today that in those years I looked at and said, "What is this? How could this be God's goodness? How could this be God's provision? How could this be what I need?"
And yet, as it's played out over the years, there are certain things I look back and go, "God was exactly right. He knew exactly what I needed." And I'll give you an example of that. During a really, really hard season that my marriage was falling apart and I was just emotionally devastated by what was happening, I decided to take some months off from ministry. And because I have a hard time sitting with myself — I'm just going to go ahead and admit that —
Jim Cress:
You're doing much better.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yes, I am doing much better on that. But back then, I had two days where I was like, "OK, I'm taking a break, but what good is this going to do for me?" And so I decided to just go ahead and make all these appointments that I needed to make, the appointments that sometimes we put off like health checkups and stuff.
And so, one of those was I made an appointment for a mammogram. I was not due for my mammogram yet. I could have stretched it out much further. And I have no history of breast cancer in my family, none of that. But because I had time, I went, and they saw something abnormal. And then I went back, and they saw something abnormal again. And I went back, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and they caught it really early, and I was able to have a double mastectomy, and praise God I'm healthy today.
But here's what I know. This is a perfect example of me looking back and saying I was so angry and almost detached by God. "Why in the world is this happening? And now I have to take a break from ministry. Why in the world? It's good for me to do ministry. It was good for this relationship to be together. Why in the world?" And I'm not saying God caused it, but I'm saying God allowed it. And as I look back now, back then when I said, "What is this?" Now I say, "Wow, that break that I had to take because my marriage was falling apart is the very thing that got me to the doctor. And it's the very thing that actually saved my life."
Joel Muddamalle:
I've got one as well, Lysa. Almost a decade ago — I think it's going to be a decade ago — I thought I was crushing it in my career. I worked for a Bible software company and got to do a lot of amazing things, traveling an insane amount. And I got to present at Women of Faith in these arena events, and it was going awesome. And I get into the back around lunchtime, and all these incredible Bible teachers are there. And there's this one gal who just kept watching my presentation, just each week, each week, and finally came to me and just said, "Hey, when are you going to stop selling Bible software and start actually really teaching the Bible?" And I was like, "Huh?"
Jim Cress:
Boom.
Joel Muddamalle:
And that set a trajectory. And by the way, her name was
Lysa TerKeurst. And that set a trajectory, where I didn't know at the time that the travel was incredibly difficult on my wife. We had three little boys, and my marriage was not in a great spot. And so it was a really powerful moment, where I look back on the faithfulness of God and go, "Man, what would've happened if I just kept grinding away?" Because that was the thing I was supposed to do, and the beauty of His faithfulness in the future and the obedience of a woman who just said, "Hey, I'm going to do what is right and see something that maybe he didn't see himself." So I want to thank you for that, Lysa. But that was a moment that I look back and I go, "Wow." And then here 10 years later, being able to sit and do Therapy & Theology with y'all and a theology of remembrance thinking back then of God's faithfulness and provision.
Jim Cress:
Yeah, didn't it? We see it. It touched something in you, yay, 10 years ago. And it touched something in you 10 seconds ago to recall that, right? And to remember. This I call to mind so much in scripture and to say, "God, You've always been faithful to me." And like He's surprised if I'm ticked at Him. Oswald Chambers who wrote My Utmost for His Highest said sin is the suspicion that God is not good. And to start with again, Jeremiah 2:13, God said, "My people have committed two sins. They've said, ‘You're not enough, God.’ He said, you're the fountain of living — He's the fountain of living water — We forsake that and get broken cisterns in the ground that can only hold muddy water." And maybe you're tired today of digging broken cisterns and you haven't come to God and just said, "God, I am angry with you."
He'll never have breaking news to God. Can you believe this? The Trinity's never going to say, "Hey, look what Cress just did." There's no breaking news there. He says, "It's good to hear from you. It's good to hear from you." I think that's a salient point. I'm always reminded of Nehemiah 1:9, right: If you've been away from God, and He says, "But if you return, though you be dispersed into the farthest skies, I'll bring you to a place I've chosen to make my name dwell." Talk about the attachment: attach, detach, reattach, maybe a whole lot of times to say ... the old hymn, "I've wandered far away from God, but now I'm coming home. The paths of sin too long I've trod. Now I'm coming home." And I just say, God says, "Good to see you." Luke 15, the prodigal ... all these attachment things that ... “Come on home. Just want to see you. Come hang out with Me. Step up into your calling.” There's the attachment, I think.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yep.