And everyone who has left houses, brother or sisters, father or mother, children, or fields because of My name will receive 100 times more and will inherit eternal life."

Matthew 19:27-30,

“Then Peter responded to Him, 'Look, we have left everything and followed You. So what will there be for us?'

Jesus said to them, “I assure you: In the Messianic Age, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses, brother or sisters, father or mother, children, or fields because of My name will receive 100 times more and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

When Peter noted that they left everything, it was related to a rich young ruler who approached Jesus and asked what He lacked in following God. Jesus told Him to sell all he had, give it to the poor and come follow Him. This young man was attached to his riches and went away grief-stricken.

Later when the disciples asked, “who can be saved?” Jesus responded, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Jesus was confronting an unhealthy attachment that this rich young ruler had for money. An attachment is the condition of being bound or attached to another thing or person. Attachments themselves are not necessarily unhealthy (especially when it comes to relationships) – some are good and created by God.

In a job, imagine if there was no attachment at all one had to the position they held or what they contributed there. One would be more likely to float around from job to job to whatever may hold a little interest in the moment.  As a result, people would have very little experience in a specific area and it would create a great deal of inefficiency.  

Loyalty to one's employment, defined as an attitude of devoted attachment and affection[1], results in long term employees who may make likely provide a a more significant contribution due to their experience. Loyalty is also valued when organizations are loyal to their employees and stick with them through difficulties resulting in  less productive seasons.

However, if one is dependent upon their job and overly attached, they may have fear around losing it and become protective of their space, responsibilities, and/or job knowledge rather than looking for how they could make a contribution.  Ever known anyone like this?  They hoard key information thinking it gives them some security when it is at the expense of productive results.

In relationships, for healthy attachment, I think of a small child when they are born, they attach to their parents. If this attachment does not happen in the first three years of life, the child can grow up dysfunctional – with what is called 'attachment disorder' where they are unable to attach to others.

Being completely unattached to others is not healthy for children and results in difficulty often throughout the child's life. On the other side, parents have natural and God given attachments to their children. They are bonds of love and care that are expressed by their sacrificial choices.

An example of this as a healthy attachment of a parent to a child is when Saul's father worried about him and sent people searching for him after the donkeys were returned and Saul had not came back. 1 Samuel 10:2, “'Someone found the donkeys you were looking for. Your father stopped worrying about his donkeys. Now he is worrying about you. He is saying: What will I do about my son?’”

Imagine how sad and inappropriate it would be if Saul's father just didn't care if or when Saul returned. An example of this lack of appropriate attachment is with Saul and his son Jonathan. In 1 Samuel 14:43-44, Jonathan ate honey not knowing his father had ordered them not to:

“Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what you have done. And Jonathan said, I tasted a little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand. And behold, I must die.  Saul answered, May God do so, and more also, for you shall surely die, Jonathan." 

Attachments are not only parents and children but also happen between companions and friends. Marriage is an example of a healthy attachment that God honors. As a couple's hearts are knit together in love, they often choose to become bound by marriage.

Jesus says, quoting the Word and His Father, “'And He also said: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' Jesus goes on to say, 'So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.'” (Matthew 19:5-6)

An example of a healthy attachment in friendship is Jonathan and David. Their souls were knit together and they had a deep bond of friendship. 1 Samuel 18:1, “After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.”

This healthy attachment resulted in godly encouragement, sacrificial giving between them, trust and the kingdom being furthered. Jonathan was an encouragement to David and kept him moving forward in his most difficult times. And David never forgot Jonathan's goodness to him and because of their bond, Mephibosheth sat at David's table when he was appointed king. (2 Samuel 9)

There are also other examples of where someone did not want to leave their father to follow God. They wanted to wait until he was buried first. While it was highly regarded to honor one's parents, Jesus said in Matthew 8:22, "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead."   In this case, it was an unhealthy attachment Jesus was confronting. 

Any time that an attachment keeps us from the will of God, it is unhealthy and idolatry. If we choose a relationship with someone, riches (like the rich young ruler), a job or other security over doing what we feel God is speaking to us, we have an unhealthy attachment.  Typically, I believe an unhealthy attachment has to do with trying to get our needs met outside of God where a healthy attachment is a place or person we are given to contribute into.

If a husband tells their wife that he plans to divorce her if she chooses to be a Christian, and the wife then gives up all religious activities and pursuits, more than likely she has an unhealthy attachment to her husband and is making him an idol. If she continues to pursue God while expressing her love to her husband – leaving the outcome of her marriage to God – this feels more healthy and rightly ordered to me.

Elijah confronted an unhealthy attachment that Elisha had. When Elijah called him, Elisha responded running after Elijah, 'Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee.   Elijah replied, "Go back again; for what have I done to thee?"

Elisha then repented.  He responded to the request of Elijah by slaughtering his oxen he had been plowing with, cooking them, and feeding them to the people.  He immediately "arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him." (1 Kings 19:21)

Imagine if Elisha would not let go of his attachments to his job and family.  If rather he held to staying with his family and continuing his work.  Or perhaps thought he could compromise by doing it all, serving Elijah part time while the other part working, being with family and building his own future. 

On the other hand, sometimes people are called to stay right where they are at and not leave. Imagine Elisha had a wife and small kids at home. If one day he came home from work and felt called to become a missionary, leave his family and job behind, and move into 'ministry,' I believe he would be sadly mistaken and demonstrate a lack of healthy appropriate attachment.  He would be missing the ministry of his family right in front of him.  

Sometimes leaving 'all' to follow God can be an excuse for not dealing with the stuff in our lives.  Instead of dealing with difficulty and conflict, one leaves their relationship, job and/or church community.  This feels more like running away than following God.

Jesus gave us an example of both healthy attachment and refusing an unhealthy attachment in Matthew 12:46-50.    Jesus was obedient and subject to his parents (Luke 2:51).   But He did not mindlessly obey them.   Jesus' mother and brothers came to get Him and pull him away from the will of God. He refused to come to them. Instead, He responded that those who did the will of His Father in heaven were His brother and sister and mother. 

He demonstrated attachment to his family (mother)  even as He gave his mother to his beloved disciple to care for when He was on the cross.  Jesus also demonstrated a deep attachment to John the Baptist, His friend, and to His disciples.  While Jesus was attached, He didn't grip hold of His relationships.   For instance, when John was beheaded, Jesus grieved but also accepted it and moved on doing the will of God in His life.  

Often, like the rich young ruler, we do not know we have attachments until they are confronted. Attachments can be to anything, including our religious beliefs. Sometimes we can sense an attachment by the way we respond when it is confronted in some way. But as with the many examples in the Bible, God does not desire to leave us in our unhealthy attachments.

Gerald May speaks of an experience called “The Dark Night of the Soul” where God brings us into a place of greater detachment from the world and those things we hold to. [2]

He writes, “During the dark night of the sense, the soul finds freedom from its attachments to particular sensory gratifications, while the dark night of the spirit releases attachments to rigid beliefs and ways of thinking, frozen memories and expectations, and compulsive, automatic choices.”[3]

Gerald May speaks of both active and passive 'dark nights.' In an active night, one participates in the process by intentionally furthering it and moving toward it. Fasting is an example of an active practice moving toward freeing one from sensory attachments. To the best of one's ability they take up one's cross and empty themselves. It is the process of denying oneself desires so that one can empty themselves and and have what they desire most (Jesus). [4]

What this looks like is moving away from, or fasting from those things that we are looking to fill us... In a job for instance, it may look like refusing to be in the lime light for a season and letting others step forward.

In a dark (passive) night of the soul, one does not actively move towards participating in the detachment. God is the one who works in us to free us “from idols we have made of possessions, relationships, feelings and behaviors.” [5]

This is more the part of God working out in our lives: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Even in our relationship with God and spiritual practices, we can make idols and attach feelings about God with God Himself. I have on occasion done this in worship of God. I have became overly attached to experiencing God and ended up making this experience of being near Him an idol. When I didn't experience His presence in a powerful way during intercession in service, I became upset and discouraged. This reaction that hindered my relationship with God reflected that I had an unhealthy attachment and made an idol of it.

What is more difficult to walk out is the line between attaching/ idolizing and enjoying what He gives us. Should I never desire to feel near Him in worship then if I idolized it? I think it was the expectation and not the experience that I had to let go of. In the same way, most of us He does not call to make a vow of poverty like the rich young ruler if we are attached to money. But He may call us to begin giving more and more so we can gain freedom and really enjoy what we have.

In the same way, if one has an unhealthy attachment to a relationship, does this mean they should move away from it all together and cut it out of their life? What tremendous pain it would cause a family if one spouse intentionally left the other and their children because they struggled with over attachment (idolizing) their partner.

Jesus chose to follow His Father above His family, placing His attachments in proper order, but He did not disown his family because of it. I believe in most cases the answer lies not in removing oneself from the relationship but in bringing it to the light, inviting God in, and allowing God to do the work.  He will set us free from our over-attachments so we can have rightly ordered relationship.and choosing always to follow the Lord first. 

When we are following the Lord first and centered upon Him, we will go where He is speaking to us to go and stay where He would have us stay.   We do not need to make our own way, He will make it for us.   It is when we fall into idolatry or let our heart become over attached that we stumble in the darkness.

John 11:9-10 says, "Anyone who walks about in the daytime does not stumble, because he sees [by] the light of this world.  But if anyone walks about in the night, he does stumble, because there is no light in him [the light is lacking to him]."

 

Forgive me Lord for where I have over attachments to things or people. Help me to fully gain freedom. I pray with David, Search us, Oh God, know our hearts. See if there be any offensive way within us and lead us on the path of everlasting... Free us from everything that would hinder our relationship with You!

1.         The Free Dictionary.  Loyalty.  1.1.14

2.-6.     May, Gerald, MD.  The Dark Night of  The Soul.HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY.  2004.