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We are built for closeness, and when those we love go “still face,” we can hardly bear it. We feel the distance, even if they’re right in the room with us. And we have to regain connection somehow. Disconnection demands a response.
How do you try to get closeness from God? That depends on your attachment style.
These are called “insecure” attachment styles, and they tend to fall into three distinct categories: an anxious attachment style a shutdown attachment style a shame-filled attachment style
An anxious attachment style of spirituality is a way of desperately trying to keep close to God. It can look different from person to person, but it could look like the person who hopes their passionate worship will bring a sense of intimacy, or who rigidly keeps a prayer time for fear of losing touch with God, or who tries to impeccably follow God.
A shutdown attachment style of spirituality is a way of relating to God that conquers feelings. In this style, faith is more important than feelings, and building a framework of theological knowledge is the bedrock of connection with God.
A shame-filled attachment style is grounded in the feeling that God loves us but doesn’t really like us. Since we’ve fallen so far below God’s standard of perfection, we shame and blame ourselves for being so unlovable, even though God has chosen to love us.
Secure attachment is a quality of relationship. It’s knowing that when I need you, you’ll be available, responsive, and engaged. Secure attachment happens when children can naturally turn toward their parents, or someone else they love, without much worry about whether they’ll be able to get what they need. The relationship doesn’t have to be perfect, but healthy connection happens often enough that we can count on that person.
He noticed that we want to “surrender in the soft caressing hands of an understanding God.”10 Using childhood imagery, he described our desire for a secure relationship, that we might “fall asleep in safe arms, to cry without fear, to let go, relax [our] tense muscles and rest long and deep”11 with God.
God’s vision for rest. Indigenous theologian Randy Woodley points out that God built this rhythm of rest and exploration into the twenty-four-hour cycle: “The night dusk comes to softly compel all creation to enter into rest.”13 God wants us to take up the easy yoke, but that’s hard to do when we think we’re the ones responsible for God’s closeness.
Only when you start practicing different ways of being with God can you feel more secure. Trying something new may require the risk of a trust fall.
There’s that sentiment again: if you feel fear, you don’t have enough faith. After all, if the fruit of closeness with God is peace and joy, then anxiety and sadness must mean there is distance in the relationship. This isn’t a new view in the church. Emotions have long been taken as thermometers of our own spiritual maturity or character. If you’re anxious, then you don’t trust God. If you’re sad, you don’t believe in the resurrection. If you’re lonely, you haven’t spent enough time meditating on God’s love. And perhaps most damaging: if you still feel the pain of trauma, you haven’t fully
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Spiritual bypass is what happens when we avoid dealing with difficult emotions, trauma, or other challenging parts of life. Instead, we rely on spiritual concepts or platitudes such as “God won’t give you more than you can handle”
A shutdown spiritual style latches on to the tasks for God to the exclusion of communion with God.
Brief Body Scan Exercise Sit upright in a comfortable position. Take three intentional breaths. They don’t have to be deep breaths, just comfortable and grounding. Notice your whole body, and see if you notice any immediate sensations. It might be pain in your neck, hunger in your stomach, or a little tension in your chest. Or maybe you feel numbness. You might notice a heaviness in your shoulders. Don’t jump to interpreting the sensation; just notice it. If paying attention to your whole body feels overwhelming, start with your toes, and move up along your legs, noticing each part until you
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But in the modern-day church, the idea of being “just like Jesus”22 has often been taken to mean we should become less like our unique selves, as though there were something inherently wrong with the way God created us. Sometimes it has even meant we are supposed to become “Jesus-robots”23 that reflect him to the exclusion of reflecting the unique ways we were made in the image of God.
“Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of spiritual life,” wrote Henri Nouwen, “because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’”28 Surely God’s love is brighter than our darkness, but constant self-denigration doesn’t help us increase our security with God. It works as a fertilizer for shame to grow.
Returning to Brené Brown’s definition of shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging,”
When we speak about ourselves as deserving only punishment, it gives us license to treat others the same. Unfortunately, when we believe that humans are unworthy of love, we lose sight of the imago Dei in every person.
Mako Nagasawa believes that one of the main influences on high rates of incarceration in the US is the Christian church’s overemphasis on God’s role as a divine punisher.32 He’s argued that because we’ve believed God is more likely to punish sinners than heal them into wholeness, we have treated offenders in our society in similar ways.
“Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence,” wrote Nouwen.34 We all know God loves us, but God’s delight is a whole other matter.
K.J. Ramsey wrote in her book, This Too Shall Last, “The chasm between who God says he is and who we experience him to be is not crossed by whipping our minds into submission with more theological facts.”36 We need the experience of being accepted and loved before we can change the story.
The Loving Face of God Think of someone who likes you. It could be a partner, a family member, a good friend, a mentor—or even a pet. Close your eyes, and imagine their face. What does it look like when you first greet them? Imagine the shape of their eyes, the upturn of their smile. Notice how your body feels as you focus. Your shoulders might relax, or you might feel your gut stop clenching. Now, without putting pressure on yourself, gently consider that perhaps this is a better picture of God’s feeling toward you than what you’ve been told. How does this new picture compare with your usual
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None of us have received a perfect understanding of God. Our specific relationship with God is built on who we are and our unique experiences. Yes, our parents influence our perception of God. But the church we grew up in, our current faith community, and the dominant theology of our larger culture also affect our relationship with God. Then there’s our specific theology and traumatic experiences, as well as our gender, sexual orientation, culture, personality, and psychological health.5 And of course, our direct experience with God also affects our relationship.
In the prodigal son parable, Jesus gave us a beautiful picture of God as a secure Parent—some have suggested it’d be better titled “The Forgiving Father,” since it’s really a story about who God is.
Our feelings should drive us to seek to understand God better. It gives us the questions to bring to Scripture, to our communities, and to God in prayer. It helps us integrate a whole faith into our whole beings.
Attachment research has shown us clear patterns of healthy parent-child relationship. We know that security is built on a relationship that is not dependent on behavior. We know that helping your child identify their emotions and manage their inner turmoil is the way to create a safe haven. And we know that delighting in your child, communicating—more than anything else—that you love them, is the way to true connection.
God as a mother holding me felt different, very different, from the God I’d known my whole life. It created a sense of safety that I could feel in my body. Even without the physical touch that can create safety, something within me changed. Something within our relationship changed. I could rest.
It’s important during these times to have your own monuments that can help you hold on to the truth that God has a covenant with you to stay close forever.
Monument Exercise In our lives, I hope most of us have times of poignantly experiencing joy, peace, love, and acceptance. They often surprise us—and then pass quickly. Take a moment to find your own monument to God’s love. Identify a time you’ve felt safe or loved or calm or felt God’s presence. Is there a concrete reminder of that time? A picture, song, poem, or other object you can return to? If not, can you draw or create an image that reminds you of the experience? Take this reminder and place it somewhere you’ll regularly see it. This helps the emotional right side of your brain integrate
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Jeremiah, tired of his job as a destruction-proclaiming prophet is frustrated with God and tells him directly, “You deceived me, LORD, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed.”9 He feels like God tricked him, and he complains about it, left in the biblical record to be read for millennia, showing us that we can do the same.
They not only showed concern for their child’s experience of sadness but also asked explicitly about their anger about feeling abandoned. They picked them up and said things like, “Oh, I bet you were so mad when Mommy left, weren’t you?” We see that healthy parents make room for anger and affirm it—even when it’s against themselves.
The psalmist writes, “Why, LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”11 and later, “How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”12 Like a toddler left at daycare, he is angry about the distance he feels. Even Jesus, stepping into our human experience of abandonment, says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” as he hangs on the cross.
the psalmist simultaneously holds both his emotions and his faith, one in each hand. He doesn’t have to choose between anger and closeness or sadness and connection. His secure relationship with God can withstand any turbulent emotions that come up. It’s not through smothering feelings in faith that he manages them; it is through bringing them forth to God. We don’t need to stuff down our feelings; we need to connect with someone who cares about us. We have a Divine Parent who listens to and empathizes with our emotions.
“hope is forged out of the biblical call to dig deep into our innards,” as Dr. Emilie Townes writes, “to tell the truth of what we see, feel, hear, and experience.”21
Writing a Lament Lament is a prayer to God that includes both complaint and praise. Take time to follow these steps, writing down each part, and join in the tradition of the psalms: Tell God something you wish were different in your own life or the world, such as a health condition, difficult relationship, life stress, poverty, or racism. Example: God, I know there are children who do not have the food they need right now. Next, tell God what you feel when you think about this issue; additionally, write down any emotions you might feel considering God’s inaction regarding this issue. I feel
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“Do not be afraid,” or “Do not worry,” it was a sign that God sees your fear and worry with a desire to respond with comfort? What if this command is a response rather than a restriction? How does your relationship with God change when you read these as comforts rather than commands? How would that change the background music of your relationship with God?
Old Testament, in Psalm 86:15, Jonah 4:2, 2 Chronicles 30:9, and several other places.25 The English word compassionate comes from the same Hebrew root as the English word womb.
Throughout Scripture, when this word is used, it describes God 80 percent of the time, while people are described in this way the remaining 20 percent.26
What if Jesus meant “the kingdom of God feels like . . .”? What does it feel like to find treasure in a field and give all that you have for it? And how does it feel, for that matter, to be the treasure? What does it feel like to be invited right off the street to a royal wedding banquet? What does it feel like for everyone to receive the same pay, despite the difference in effort?
God knows “we are feeling creatures that think” rather than “thinking creatures that feel,” as neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor put it.28
Lectio divina is intended to be a restful and curious time of engaging with God, not unlike other types of meditation. Rather than thinking about what this time should be like, we open ourselves up to whatever occurs. In this practice, we find rest and even playfulness. We not only participate with our analytical brain but make space for our whole selves to show up and engage with God, Scripture, and the feelings that well up within—even if they are small, slight, and barely noticeable.
When you are in touch with your emotions, you feel all the more connected with your Divine Parent, sharing your whole self with a God who longs to see and know you—and who longs for you to feel seen, known, and loved.
Spurgeon didn’t know that those terrible feelings naturally occur in us when our need for connection goes unmet. When we don’t have a secure connection, something within us begins to hurt, sometimes causing excruciating pain. Psychiatrist Curt Thompson says that when we experience this deep sense of shame, we “tell our stories in such a way that we are the sole responsible party for what we feel.”16 The
Shame from attachment trauma often remains in an “implicit form,” which means we don’t have a coherent story about why we feel so terrible about ourselves; it’s just a feeling that exists deep within.
Maybe that’s part of why preachers like Spurgeon have had such wild success: he spoke to a deep need within us, trying to give a concrete story for this amorphous feeling of disconnection we carry. He felt it within himself and found a spiritual framework for it that made it a little more tolerable—and that promised a solution.
We can move toward healing only when we understand it is a painful sign that we need closeness, rather than taking it as confirmation that we need to be holier. Like an infected wound, the pain of shame tells us that we need extra care and tenderness. We need to experience a Divine Parent who delights in us and draws close because we are so very loved.
Certain fields of developmental psychology talk about this as a “yield state.” In infancy, a yield state is when a child is at rest in her mother’s arms. She’s not reaching, exploring, or learning; she’s simply existing in the arms of her mother, a space that she fits perfectly. She looks up into her mother’s eyes and sees them looking back. She feels seen, and she sees adoration in her mother’s face.
The Intersection of Psychology and Everyday Life Just like a yield state, Sabbath is a specific time for simply being together, without any other particular goal. Similarly, immediately after God delivered Israel from Egypt—an empire that demanded more and more work—one of the first decrees instituted Sabbath, a rhythm of rest and healing.19 Practicing Sabbath today is a way to draw close to God in a yield state.
Nouwen pointed to this when he wrote, “If we could just be, for a few minutes each day, fully where we are, we would indeed discover that we are not alone and that the One who is with us wants only one thing: to give us love.”
This yield state creates a sense of belovedness within us. It’s the experience of being loved for who you are (not in spite of who you are).
