Today’s post follows what I started last week, which has now been heavily edited so the two flow together better.  You can read it here.

I pray for
Hands that hold you
higher than anything else
And a heart that loves You
more than life itself
This is all I’ve ever wanted
This is all I want to be
All I’ve ever wanted
is to love You
faithfully

Margaret Becker, All I Ever Wanted

This beautiful song by Margaret Becker was a huge hit in Christian music years ago, but for me the song created tension.  Not the whole song, just one little word.  One little word that made the song impossible for me, with any integrity, to sing.  I could not say that God was “all” I wanted.  Oh, I definitely wanted Him in my life, but there were always other things I wanted too.  It was never all or only Him.

Now it’s different:  I know, intellectually and emotionally, in my core that nothing is more important or central than my life with God.  Getting here was a long and slow process of discovering repeatedly that what I thought I needed and wanted, did not fill me up as I had expected.  One reason this took so long was that my desires for certain people, possessions and experiences felt so real and essential to my happiness.  I just couldn’t muster up seeking Him all through the day.  I could do it in the morning and at different moments in the day … but not ALL day, every day.  There were too many other things needed.  Wanted.  These were my attachments and I could not see around them.

Attachment is a contemporary term for idolatry.  It is a helpful word because it is descriptive of what is going on in our hearts.  It applies to those things we seek as though they are essential to our well-being, peace of mind and contentment.  Sometimes we crave them.  We find it hard to ignore their pull.  We feel they will meet our needs for safety, love, belonging, rest, refreshment, meaning, purpose, unity … even when a part of us knows otherwise.  Success will bring respect.  Beauty will draw love.  Money will access power and provide security.  Certain possessions will open the door to belonging.

How do we fall into this?   Well, when we gaze at something repeatedly, over a period of time, a desire for that something will grow up in our hearts.  I drive a mini-van.  It is comfortable, roomy and clean (thank you, husband).  It is paid for.  I can transport my whole family plus friends wherever we need to go.  The air conditioner and stereo work great.  It gets great gas mileage.  What it isn’t, my kids tell me, is cool.  But I don’t care about that until I start noticing what everyone else drives.  When I look around at the school parking lot I too, see nicer, cooler vehicles.  If I do this regularly, I will become discontent with my minivan.  I will start to desire a new vehicle.  I will mention this to my husband.  Now – if it stops here, if this is all that transpires in my mind and heart – I would not call my desire for a new car an attachment.  But, if, when I’m out and about, where I can notice what others are driving AND I am feeling disconnected, like I don’t belong, I might hear a subtle whisper*:  “this is why I don’t feel a part of things.  With a new car, I could fit in, I could belong.”  It is this sort of collision of hunger and object that creates an attachment.

These collisions can happen every day, for our hearts are always hungry and our culture offers constant objects on which we might set our desires.  Unaware of the space they eat up in our heart and too busy to sufficiently screen all the images that fly by our eyes each day, we fall in love with pumpkin spice lattes, big trucks, well manicured lawns, fashion, fame … the list goes on and on, doesn’t it?  How many times did my kids pine for a certain toy, but when they got it, all that passion fell away after a few months, weeks or even days?  I am the same.  You are the same.  Attachments can be people, things, experiences and dreams, that take root in our hearts and thus feel so very essential to our hopes that it is impossible for us to recognize that God is our deepest longing and nothing compares to Him.

What can we do?  What must we do?  Well … that will be for next week.

* This could me be my own head talking or it could be you-know-who.  No, not Voldemort – that’s he-who-cannot-be-named.  I am referring to the deceiver.