May 6, 2024 • 43 mins
In this episode, the second of our Psalms and Secure Attachment series, Nate Claiborne talks with Benjamin Kandt about more of the specifics of attachment theory. The core of attachment theory is the dynamic processes that nurture emotional and spiritual bonds: attunement, containment, and the dance of rupture and repair in relationships.
Alongside this, we address the complexities of establishing a bond with a deity we cannot touch or see, sidestepping trite explanations and engage with the real struggles of those wrestling with anxiety and fear. The scars of trauma can distort our view of God, and so we explore the shadows that abuse casts on one's theological outlook. But, abuse and trauma do not get the last word, and an earned secure attachment with God and others is possible, something we will explain in upcoming episodes.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to another episode of the All About Podcast
.
I'm your host, Nate Claiborne,and I'm here once again with
Pastor Benjamin Kant.
How are we doing, Ben?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nate doing well.
Looking forward to talkingabout the Psalms and secure
attachment.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That's right.
This is episode two in thissort of mini-series that we're
doing.
So a couple episodes ago weintroduced people to the
connection between these twoconcepts of the Psalms of Refuge
as being kind of a big kind ofcontainer for a bunch of
different types of Psalms, andthen this concept of secure
attachment that we're drawingfrom psychological literature.
(00:48):
So we sort of put those twothings next to each other and
said look at this.
But we didn't go into a lot ofdetail on either one of them.
And so that's what we're here todo today is to kind of give a
little more technicolor to thisidea of secure attachment, or
even just attachment in general,like what is it?
How does it develop, how doesit fall apart?
(01:10):
How does it get reestablished?
And one of the lingeringquestions I'm sure listeners
have if they really listen tothe last one.
That's not a shot at thelisteners, I'm just saying if
you listen to the last one, Ithink we left you with a little
bit of a cliffhanger of how doyou attach to a spirit, because
most of the way we're using aconcept that's between, for
human relationships, and we'reapplying it to a human divine
(01:33):
relationship, and so there'ssome continuities,
discontinuities, that sort ofthing.
So we're going to pick a littlebit of that up today.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, that's great.
So that's really the questionwe left off on is okay, if the
Psalms this was my argument in anutshell, the number one the
human experience, particularlyfrom the nervous system up, so
(02:08):
like from a very basic level ofour experience of what it feels
like to have the security of arefuge.
So that's really the point ofcontact that I made between the
book of Psalms and the idea orthe concept of secure attachment
.
So then the next question wouldbe hey, we all know what it's
(02:29):
like to be a child who's afraidand runs to their mom or dad, or
to be the parent that theirchild runs to and you pick them
up, or you get picked up and youget held in those arms and you
experience a physical securityin the arms of a caregiver and,
for the record, that is afundamental human need.
(02:49):
In other words, if you don't getthat, if you don't have that,
it will profoundly distort yourhuman growth and development.
That's one of the things thatwe've learned from attachment
theory.
There's that interestingpsychological experiment they
did on monkeys where they put Ithink it was rhesus monkeys in a
cage and they put them with abottle of milk and then a wire
(03:14):
monkey that was covered in furand the rhesus monkey would
spend all day on the fur,basically, and would leave the
fur to go drink some milk andthen run back to the fur and
these infant rhesus monkeys.
One of the things they realizedfrom that was the importance of
physical touch, the importanceof proximity to this what seemed
(03:37):
like a mother figure.
This is kind of messed up thatthey did this to monkeys right,
they're not allowed to do stufflike this anymore, it's even
worth pointing out for therecord.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
A lot of the things we have learned through
experimentation in the early tomid-20th century cannot happen
anymore for a variety of reasons, and yet somehow we're still
benefiting from the insights.
Yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Like that one, we can still do it with rats, I think,
because they're such lowerorder mammals or something I
don't even know.
There's such lower order mammalsor something I don't even know,
and so to that, if physicalproximity is such a big deal,
the question remains how do wesecurely attach or how do we
find refuge in a God who isspirit?
And I said this last time Ihave zero tolerance for a
(04:21):
sentimental answer to thatquestion, and the reason why is
because I've sat with enoughpeople who have chronic anxiety.
I've experienced anxiety andfear so acutely that a
sentimental answer means nothingto you in those moments, and so
I don't wanna do that to ourlisteners.
I don't wanna give you somesentimentality about like just
believe more and everything'sbetter.
That does more harm than good,and so I'm really wrestling this
(04:44):
down and I don't know that Ihave an answer that is so good
that it's like steadfast in theface of the harsh corners of
reality that we experience.
But I'm working towards that.
So this is me kind of workingthat out with you, Nate, in our
list.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I mean, we're both presenting ideas that we've
thought through, but we're alsothinking out loud.
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yep.
So here's my from attachmentliterature.
One of the things that waspresented by John Bowlby was
this idea of internal workingmodels, and I think this has a
lot of potential to answer thequestion I'm talking about.
So an internal working model isbasically you have enough
experiences with a primarycaregiver to where you actually
(05:26):
internalize that caregiver andyou almost think about it like
they're imprinted on your psyche.
They're imprinted on yousomewhere internally and so you
are.
This is true for every humanbeing.
You first recognize the otherbefore you have a sense of self.
So there's something thathappens in infants into
toddlerhood where they begin torecognize themselves in a mirror
(05:49):
.
But a lot of times babies don'tknow that that's if you point
to you holding them in themirror, they can say that's
daddy or that's mommy in themirror but, they can't notice
that.
that's them in the mirror,because we all develop a sense
of the other before we develop asense of self.
It's a really big deal, and sowhat internal working models are
(06:10):
talking about is our ability toactually internalize the other
into ourselves such that wecarry around our caregivers with
us even when we're not withthem.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, just a psychological point even.
To add onto that is, weactually can't have a sense of
self apart from the sense ofother, which is why it has to
develop in that direction.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yes, that's so good.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I have to be aware of the outside world that is not
me before I can have a clearersense of what is me in relation
to my caregivers, mysurroundings, my context and
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That's exactly right, which actually is like a fatal
blow to expressive individualism, the idea that the world would
be a better place if I wouldjust turn inward, search my
heart, find out who I am andthen live that out, you know, on
the display for everybody elseto experience, or maybe endure
in some cases.
Right Um, that, that is the,that is one of the fundamental
(07:00):
narratives of our culturalmoment, and the problem is is
that you don't have anindividual you to express that's
not bound up in relationshipwith other people.
There is no self-existence fora human being.
There is only you, existing inrelation in relation to God,
first and foremost creatorcreature, but then in existence,
(07:21):
or in relation to your primarycaregivers and to your friends
and family, and you know thosekinds of people.
That's a really big deal.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, and the irony of all that is that the roots of
this expressive individualismwas developed by people who were
not individualistic Like they,so it's like it's.
The way forward is kind of ayes to the expressive piece and
the no to the individualism, butnot a both and conjunction of
the two, because of some of thethings you were just saying is
it is the expression of the self, is a way to unite yourself to
(07:51):
other people, not as a way toshow how unique and special you
are.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yes, wow, yeah, that is.
That is quite a different waythan we talk about it today.
And when I say we talk about, Imean like every Disney movie,
right, I mean like the versionthat's out there now does not
work 80% of the top songs on thetop 50 on Spotify right now
probably have some version ofexpressive individualism
expressed in it.
(08:15):
So here's a quote from DianeLangberg, who is a Christian
psychologist who has written andworks in a lot in the realm of
abuse spiritual, sexual,physical abuse and so this is a
comment about abuse survivorsand how they relate to God in
light of their abuse, and so,again, this is relevant to this
(08:35):
concept of internal workingmodels.
I think here's what she says,quote we see that many survivors
exhibit this quality ofthinking frozen in time, so I'm
going to pause there for amoment.
What Diane Langberg is sayinghow we learn about the abstract
(09:04):
or the unseen think.
Your view of God is from theconcrete, in the scene Think
your relationships with otherpeople, and God's okay with this
.
In fact, he designed us this way.
It's why the Bible is full ofmetaphors, because he knows to
talk about God being.
This, like substantialimmutable being, is an
abstraction To talk about, tosay God is my rock.
Immutable being is anabstraction.
(09:27):
To talk about.
To say God is my rock is a veryconcrete way to talk about God.
To talk about God as my strongtower is a very concrete way to
talk about God, because we'veseen giant boulders and maybe
we've been inside of strongtowers before.
So God actually designed us toexperience the concrete and the
seen and then to extrapolatefrom that to the abstract and
the unseen.
Now God is not merely anabstraction.
(09:49):
God is closer to us than we areto ourselves, as Augustine says
.
He is very real, very personal,very concrete in that sense.
But our views, our thoughts,our concepts, the image of God
that we have in our mind, ourGod image, as psychologists
would put it, is an abstractionin its own right.
I'm reading a book by GeorgeMacDonald right now and he says
(10:11):
something to the effect of weall have views of God, and
there's probably as manydifferent views of God as there
are human beings who have viewsof God.
And yet there is some level ofproximity to the reality of who
God is actually like that all ofthose views of God fall along
that spectrum.
I just thought that's a powerfulway to put it.
Like Nate, you and I probably,if we took a test that had like
(10:33):
500 questions about God on it,would probably score pretty
similarly in our views of God.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
That's my hunch.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
And some of that's.
You know our own formation andtraining and the books we read,
the people we think with, andall that.
And yet what he's talking aboutis not your creedal,
confessional view of God, butyour actual experience, your
beliefs about God, and thatthat's probably as diverse as
there are number of people.
But there's a continuum ofproximity to who God actually is
, the reality of who Godactually is, that our beliefs
(11:03):
about God fall on.
And what Diane Langeberg issaying is that one of the
primary ways you can fall on acontinuum that makes you believe
things about God that are farfrom who he is is if you've had
really adverse experiences inrelationship with human beings,
particularly abusive experiences.
So she goes on.
She says one area that thisprofoundly impacts is the
(11:25):
spiritual.
God is viewed through the lensof abuse.
I just want to pause and saythere are listeners who are
hearing us talk right now, whothat sentence is true for you.
God is viewed through the lensof abuse and I don't know, as I
say that, what that sounds liketo you or what you feel even as
I say that, as I say that, whatthat sounds like to you or what
(11:45):
you feel even as I say that butI think it brings God heartache
on your behalf, not in the senseof he's mad at you, not in the
sense of he's scolding orscowling over you, in the sense
of he longs for you to know himas the tenderhearted father, the
God and father of our LordJesus Christ.
He longs for you to know him ashe truly is.
But he understands I think hegenuinely understands why you
(12:08):
might view him through the lensof abuse.
And so Diane Langberg goes on.
She says who God is and whatGod thinks about.
The survivor is understood basedon who daddy was, or mommy, or
a grandfather, or a youth pastoror whoever.
They have learned about love,trust, hope, faith through the
experience of sexual abuse.
She's talking about that kindof abuse in particular.
(12:30):
They've also learned about theunseen through the visible.
The ins and outs of theordinary life have taught them
many lessons about who theythink God is.
That is why a therapist orpastor may have the experience
of speaking the truths ofscripture to a survivor, truths
that are desperately needed andyet finding that they seem to
have no impact.
(12:51):
I'm going to pause again.
Does anybody else have thatexperience where you read the
Bible or you hear a great sermonabout the love of God, the
kindness of God, the mercy ofGod, the generosity of God, and
they seem to have no impact onyou, even though they're truths
that you desperately need.
Another way to say this is thetruth doesn't feel true.
If you've had that experience,you're probably in the realm of
(13:13):
your attachment.
You're probably in the realm ofyour internal working model of
God and you've come by ithonestly.
You've probably got reallylegitimate stories and reasons
why you might conceptualize oreven feel God to be like that.
So we'll go on.
This is the end of the quote.
These truths and principles,they don't sink in.
Many times survivors can speakeloquently of the truths of
scripture, but on anexperiential level, their lives
(13:34):
are lived out in the context ofwhat the abuse taught them.
Wow, intellectually, truth isrooted in the word of God.
Experientially or personallyapplied, the truth is rooted in
the lessons of abuse.
So as I read that, nate, I'mcurious how that strikes you.
That comes from a work she hascalled the Spiritual Impact of
Sexual Abuse.
What does that stir up in?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
you.
Yes, it makes me think just howsignificant experience is.
I'm working on a paper rightnow that's really kind of
arguing that all all theologystarts in experience for better,
like, and it's not even like a,for better or for worse.
It's not even like a.
This is bad, we should fix it.
(14:17):
It's just more of a recognitionthat, like, this is reality,
this is just reality.
Is that my experience is thegrid through which I make sense
of theological claims and sothere is a.
In the case of abuse, like whatyou're reading in this quote,
there's a barrier to actuallyunderstanding those theological
(14:37):
claims truly.
I mean, maybe there's not abarrier to understanding,
there's a barrier to trustingthat they're true, to actually
feeling them for themselves.
Yes, and instead it is, yeah,intellectually I understand how
all that fits together, but Idon't experience that in any way
.
Yes, or it's just an abstractexercise, almost in the sense of
(14:58):
like.
I can tell you a lot aboutancient mythology, but that
doesn't make me think any ofit's real.
Right, like I understand it, Icould explain it.
It's like I think it just mademe think oh yeah, I think that
is.
One of the problems in theologyin our contemporary situation
is that a lot of people canexplain it, but it doesn't
actually impact their livesbecause of the experiential grid
(15:21):
that it has to work through.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, so well said, and I think that's worth
pointing out, what you're sayingabout theology.
We would make a distinctionbetween God's revelation to us
in scripture, which isauthoritative and has the role
of being the standard by whichwe judge all of our theology.
But theology is done by persons, right?
(15:42):
And so those persons bring theirpersonality, they bring who
they are to the text whenthey're theologizing, when
they're reflecting on the Biblein light of their personal
experience and in light of thesituations that they're in,
whether those are culturalmoments or personal situations,
like there's theologies thatcome out of World War II that
are really influenced by theexperience of World War II,
(16:05):
right.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Juergen Moltmann is a prime example.
Somebody who actually fought in, was prisoner of war, saw
people get firebombed and thenhas to write this theological.
He doesn't have to write thistheological work, but in his
work, the Crucified God, hisstarting point is that God has
to suffer with us.
To be God I wouldn't say to bea divine being, but if we're
(16:30):
going to take God seriously, hehas to be able to suffer with us
.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Wow yeah, in light of his experience.
In light of his experience,he's holding God to the standard
of his experience in a lot ofways, which is different than to
even to point it out here.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Just as we're, we don't want to get too far into
the weeds of theological method.
But it's different to say weall start with experience.
It's another thing to sayexperience is the norm, yes, or
is the authority of?
What determines what is or isnot true?
And it's a very tricky line tolike.
I do want to take my experienceinto account, yeah, but I don't
want it to be the thing bywhich I judge everything's truth
(17:02):
or falsehood.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, I think that's right, and the cheeky way to put
that is there's a distinctionbetween what you feel and what
is real.
We all hope that that's true.
Right yeah, that what is real.
Even when we talk capital R,our ultimate reality is the
Trinity and the kingdom.
Right, like?
That's what is ultimately real,and yet what we feel is it
(17:25):
falls short of that quite a bit.
And one of the reasons why thePsalms and secure attachments so
helpful to me is it helps giveus some language and categories
to understand and grapple with.
Well, why is what we feel sofar?
Why is there such a gap betweenwhat is real and what we feel?
Like?
So plenty of people know thebiblical view of who God is and
plenty of people don't.
So plenty of people know thebiblical view of who God is, Um,
and plenty of people don't.
But plenty of people do.
(17:46):
In their attachment schema, um,their internal working models
are actually preventing themfrom from feeling, from
experiencing the reality of whoGod is.
Um.
And so good news, um, dallasWillard and Jim Wilder have this
book called renovated Um, andin there Jim Wilder really
argues uh, what if weconceptualized, what if we
(18:09):
thought about salvation as a newattachment, a new secure
attachment Like what if wethought about all that Jesus
came to do, all that God inChrist has done by his spirit to
reconcile us to himself,reconcile us to himself.
What if we thought about that inthe context of that was all.
There's a lot of work on God'spart to bring us into a new,
(18:32):
securely attached relationshipwith God.
I love that.
I actually love that idea.
I think it's really powerful.
This is what they say.
Quote is salvation itself a newand active attachment with God
that forms and transforms ouridentities?
In the human brain, identityand character are formed by whom
we love.
Attachments are powerful andlong lasting Ideas can be
changed much more easily.
Salvation through a new lovingattachment to God which changes
(18:55):
our identities, would be a veryrelational way to understand our
salvation.
We would be both saved andtransformed through attachment,
love from to and with God.
That's what they're arguing andI think it's persuasive.
It's compelling to me that away to conceptualize salvation
is that it's a new, secureattachment to.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
God.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
And that God did a lot of work in order to bring us
back into that.
And one of the things weunderstand about salvation is
that there's a past, present andfuture tense to it.
And so, in light of that, ifGod has saved us, because he's
reconciled us to himself throughJesus, by his spirit, those of
us who are listening, who areregenerated, we've been made new
by the Holy Spirit, in unionwith Jesus.
(19:39):
Let's talk about that processin the middle, the present tense
, the ongoing nature ofsalvation, the way in which God
is healing and restoring us to asecurely attached relationship
with him, because I think that'swhere we can get pretty
practical with this.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, it makes me think of in therapy, when you're
trying to help someone workthrough this.
They have to go.
I don't know if you call it aprocess or not.
You're the therapist here.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Trust the process mate.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, trust the process.
You use language of earnedsecure attachment, of this idea
of if someone doesn't reallyknow what a secure attachment
feels like in their life, theycan achieve that over the course
of time with their therapist.
To some extent they learn whatit's like and then that gives
(20:25):
them an experience that they cannow use to evaluate other
relationships and work throughother relationships
appropriately.
It feels like this would maponto that as well.
In this case, you're notearning it.
In the truth, you have tobracket that out.
When we're talking aboutsalvation, there's a sense in
which it is a thing that doesdevelop.
(20:45):
Develop.
It doesn't just like oh, I'msaved, I'm now securely attached
, I feel everything totallydifferent.
All my relationships are goingto change.
It's a in principle.
The attachment has now beenmade, yep, but my experience of
it, my understanding of it, myway of actually mapping it on
onto other relationships, isgoing to take time to develop.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, I think that's right, it's, it's cultivated,
it's strengthened, it's healed,it's uh, it's built, it's
developed, like all those wordswould be ways of getting at what
you said when you said earned,like it's, it's, it's hard one
almost, and that's true betweena therapist and their client,
right, like therapists workreally hard to cultivate a
(21:28):
really strong bond, a securelyattached bond with their client.
Because we believe that therelationship, what's called the
working alliance, between thetherapist and the client is the
primary source of healing, atleast on a horizontal set.
In the horizontal sense, theprimary source of healing is the
Holy Spirit, but but on ahorizontal sense, it's that it's
(21:50):
that working alliance, thatsecurely attached relationship
between the counselor and theirclient, um, that enables healing
to occur, and that that's, itis earned.
It's not given.
In that sense, right, even ifsomebody might walk into the
room and say, oh, I totallytrust you.
It's like, do you though?
Maybe you shouldn't Maybe youreally I should show you that
I'm trustworthy, and so, in asimilar sense, I genuinely
(22:12):
believe God is glad to workreally hard to earn your trust.
Like I really believe that, Ireally believe that there's a
way in which God is in some waysbending over backwards in order
to show himself bothtrustworthy and true, and that
starts with the gospel, right.
It starts with him sending hisson and his spirit, but he's
(22:34):
doing it in real life, in realtime in our lives today, and so
one of the ways I want to talkabout that is using these
attachment categories ofattunement, containment, rupture
and repair.
So these are three things in theattachment literature.
Attunement is when you are ableto see into someone and to
(22:58):
essentially bring yourself tosee them so well that you're
seeing their internal state.
Now, we do this often, right,if you are around somebody who
just seems like they're kind ofin a low mood state, right, you
might just check in with them.
You might say hey, nate, areyou doing okay today?
Now, you didn't say anything,there was nothing explicit in
(23:20):
that sense, but I'm attuned towhat would be your internal
state, given some non-verbals,some ways in which I'm
experiencing you inconversations, those kind of
things.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
That's a form of attunement.
Now, the Psalms are profoundlyattuned to the human experience.
John Calvin says that it's ananatomy of all parts of the
human soul.
You're not going to findanything in human experience
that's not represented in thebook of Psalms.
That's a really big deal.
Um, I believe it's Augustine, Ithink it's in his um, uh
(23:54):
teachings on the Psalms.
Uh, he, he describes the Psalmslike a mirror and he says what
happens in the mirror is thePsalms show ourselves to us.
As we look at the Psalms, so wesee our own lives represented
there in very real and clearways.
But then they reflect our livesback to us in the presence of
(24:15):
God.
And so, in that sense, thePsalms themselves.
God's given us this book ofPsalms because the words there,
the experiences that are there,they attune with our experience.
And so praying through thePsalms on a regular basis,
having a regular diet of kind ofdevouring, and feasting on the
book of Psalms, actually, Ithink, brings us into this
(24:36):
experiential nature of us beingfelt by God in his attunement to
our experience.
Before I move on to containment, I'm curious what that sounds
like to you, Nate, or what eventhat evokes in your mind.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Well, it makes me think of we talked about.
I think we touched on this lastepisode.
We talked about the sense offeeling felt, which is maybe a
next level of that.
But just attunement is just.
It's being able to sense andfeel your way through your
environment, including otherpeople.
That's right.
And so you walk into a room andyou're able to sense like, yeah
(25:12):
, something's going on in here.
You're attuned to what'shappening, but you can narrow
your attunement, the focus of it, to an individual person and be
like I can just tell you'reanxious.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Everything about your body language is telling me
that, or I can tell you'rereally excited.
What?
What you know?
The way you're smiling isdifferent.
What happened Like?
So just it's.
It's being very attentive toenvironmental cues, but
specifically as it relates topeople.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, that's good.
Well, when we use language likethat in our culture, we talk
about somebody having an energy,like, oh they just well, you
just brought a certain energyinto the room, right?
Or you might talk about.
I remember I was asked this guyif I could pray for him, who
isn't a follower of Jesus, andhe said, yeah, that'd be great.
So I prayed for him and then hesent me a text afterwards.
He's like hey, thanks so muchfor those positive vibes, and I
(26:05):
was like that's what youunderstand.
That just happened right there.
And it gave him positive vibes.
Right, me doing my spiritualthing in his presence gave him
positive vibes, yeah, and so wetalk about this idea of vibing,
which has, I think, comes fromlike the idea of vibration.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I had no idea this is where we were going, totally
Neither did we.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Vibrations and attunement has musical ideas to
it.
And the next step afterattunement is resonance.
And so first, Nate, I attune toyou or you attune to me, and so
I see into what your internalstate is like, and then
resonance is when I begin tofeel some of your internal state
.
Now we all know that we'veexperienced anxiety being
(26:42):
contagious.
We've all experienced what it'slike to be in a room where
there's just a sense of sobrietyor somberness in the room.
Maybe somebody's got some heavynews or something like that.
We've also experienced being ata concert and there's just this
like really high energy andwhat's happening?
Our nervous systems areresonating with each other.
Our right brain to right brainresonance is happening.
(27:03):
This is a profound thing thathuman beings are capable of
doing, and I'm saying because ofinternal working models.
We're capable of doing thatwith people or persons that are
not physically present, which Ithink is a really big deal.
So one of the things I like todo is, just so that you know,
not like proof texting from thePsalms like is to take just the
five Psalms of the day.
(27:23):
So today's the 25th, multiplythat by five.
We're talking about Psalms 121through 125.
I think by the third episodepeople are going to understand
your math.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I know I got to figure out how to do that better
.
I've always been bad at mathand so I'm even worse at
explaining it.
It so.
So, psalm 123, um, I spent some, I spent the year 2020,
memorizing the Psalms of Ascent,which are 120 through 134.
Um, and when I was, uh, when Iwas memorizing the Psalm or 135,
I think when I was memorizingthem, uh, everybody knows what
(27:53):
the year 2020 was like.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I was in.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I was in Psalm 123, uh, in April, which was kind of
the I mean, this was the dogdays of 2020.
Like this, is when it wasgetting really bad.
We were all still in lockdownhere in Orlando, this kind of
stuff and I read Psalm 123 andthe psalmist says this have
mercy upon us, o Yahweh.
Have mercy upon us, for we havehad more than enough.
(28:17):
And I experienced attunement inthat moment.
I thought, wow, this Psalm isarticulating my experience.
I've had more than enough.
And then it gave me words.
Oh Lord, would you have mercyon us?
I've had more than enough.
I've had more than enough Zoomcalls.
I've had more than enough, youknow, mask mandates.
(28:38):
I've had more than enoughlockdowns, more than enough of
the ways in which 2020 was justchallenging for all of us, right
, and so that's an example ofhow the Psalms connect so
acutely to our internalexperience and then give us
words to bring them into thepresence of God, into
relationship with Him, so that Ican experience His attunement.
Now, containment, so that'sattunement.
(29:00):
Containment is what it soundslike, which is when an
attachment figure can createspace.
We use that languagetherapeutically a lot.
They create space with theirvery presence.
A way I like to talk about thisis it's a form of hospitality.
You've been around people whohave a hospitable presence.
You can come and be around themand you feel like you don't
(29:20):
have to put on a mask.
You feel like you don't have tobe somebody.
You're not why?
Because they have a hospitablepresence.
They know what containmentlooks like.
But containment goes furtherand it looks like this Imagine a
teenager who just got introuble for being out past their
curfew and their mom or theirdad holds them accountable.
They play the role of mom anddad and they say hey, listen,
(29:42):
you're not allowed to come backpast curfew.
And the teenager gets so upsetbecause there's hormones and
emotions, all these things, andthey say well, I hate you.
And they stomp up the steps andthey slam the door of the
bedroom door, right?
What mom and dad have to do inthat moment, if they're
attachment figures for thatchild which they are is they
have to contain that emotion.
(30:03):
Now, that might have beenprofoundly painful.
They might have been incrediblyangry that their child said that
in that moment.
What mom and dad cannot do inthat moment is go, I hate you
too.
Why?
Because they are supposed to bemore emotionally and
psychologically mature thantheir teenager and their
(30:28):
stronger, more mature brain issupposed to be able to regulate
itself so that they can create acontainer to regulate their
teenager's brain.
Now, some of us never got this,and now we're 40 and we don't
have strong, emotionally,psychologically mature brains,
and so we can't barely handlethose moments and we do things
we regret and we have to dealwith those things.
Things escalate and spiral.
Why ate you too.
Or you know you're the mostungrateful little Brad, or you
(30:49):
know these things happen and weknow that they happen, and they
cause us deep pains of guilt andshame afterwards when we
remember and recall them.
But what containment does isyou have somebody who's a
stronger, more mature brain thatcan create an environment for
you to come and pour out thecontents of your soul, and they
can create a space, a containerfor that.
(31:10):
Psalms talk often about pouringout your hearts before God
Psalm 62, verse 8.
And so this is one of the wayswe can experience a secure
attachment with God as we pourout the container of our souls
into the containment of God'spresence.
And the Psalms have morelaments than they have praises,
(31:30):
which means that the Psalmsagain train us in secure
attachment.
They train us to articulatethese experiences to God.
Let me just give you one, andthen, nate, I'd love to hear
your thoughts about this.
Psalm 74, verse 11.
This is one of my favoritePsalms of lament.
This is the Psalmist talking toGod.
If you didn't think you couldtalk to God like this, read the
Psalms and you'll you'll learnthat you can.
Verse 11.
(31:51):
Why do you hold back your hand?
Your right hand, take it fromthe fold of your garment and
destroy them.
Okay so, this is the context.
The Psalmist Okay so this isthe context.
The psalmist feels like they'reexperiencing injustice and they
want God to do something aboutit.
And they say in good Hebrewpoetic idiom thing Get your
hands out of your pockets, god,do something.
(32:12):
That's what the psalmist issaying.
Take it from the fold of yourgarment and destroy them.
If you didn't know, you couldtell God to take his hands out
of his pockets.
You can think about thatSomebody just standing there
with their hands in theirpockets when they should be
doing something right.
You're angry.
Get your hands out of yourpockets, do something about this
Act.
That's what the psalmist justsaid to God.
Why?
Because the psalmist is angrythat God's allowing them to
(32:34):
experience what they'reexperiencing and they have no
problem telling him about it.
Why?
Because they're securelyattached.
They know that God is acontainer for their worst
emotions.
Now, is this theologically true?
Absolutely not.
It's not true.
God is actively involved inevery situation.
God, what people intend forevil, god intends for good.
He works things out for thegood of those who are called
(32:55):
according to his purpose.
Right so?
Romans 8, 28,.
This famous passage.
So this is not theologicallytrue.
What the psalmist isarticulating, god doesn't care
really.
He wants the real you to cometo the real God to pour out the
contents of your soul, to bringthe reality of where you are,
matters more to God than ifyou're being theologically
accurate Now.
Theological accuracy matters toGod.
I believe that.
(33:16):
But, in these moments, he wantsto create a container for you to
pour out your groanings, youranger, your rage, your vengeance
into his presence, and so thathe can contain that there.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, well, it's even .
I mean, even in this, in thisspace.
It's the experience of thepsalmist is God's just standing
there with his hands in hispockets?
That's right, and so it's like,in some sense, it is true,
because you're relaying.
This is how I'm experiencingyou right now.
You're pouring that out.
You're not necessarily makingcause it.
I mean, if we, if you read thenext verse, he immediately like
(33:49):
does the truth shift to in avery metaphorical way?
Cause I don't know if listenersare comfortable with God
breaking the heads of seamonsters and dividing carcasses
to create the world.
But that's what the nextsection says, but it's.
It is this?
Like he's almost taking it back, like this is how I feel you
are right now.
On the other hand, I know thisis not who you are and then lays
(34:11):
out these are things I know,but this is what I'm
experiencing from you right now.
Do something about it.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
So good, you're right , cause that's I read verse 11,.
Verse 12 says yet God, my King,is from of old, working
salvation in the midst of theearth.
So to your point, they'rejuxtaposing what they feel and
what is real.
In their way they bring this toGod.
That's a really big deal,because some of us stall out or
get, you know, start spinningour tires in our resentment
(34:38):
towards God, and some of thereason why that is because we
don't think we have permissionto articulate that to God.
Another reason for that is thatwe don't actually do the next
move that the psalmist does,which is they praise God for who
they believe God is in reality,even when they don't feel that
to be true.
And so that third categorywhich I gave, which was
(35:00):
attunement, containment, andthen the third one is rupture
and repair.
So this is a broader categorythan repentance and forgiveness.
This is a, this is a categoryof any kind of strain or break
in a relationship.
So that happens on accident,right?
You?
We call these missing eachother, right?
Martin Buber had this categoryof a miss meet, which is when
you is, when the I and the thoudon't really connect with each
(35:23):
other very well, and we getmismeets all the time.
You're saying one thing andyou're I'm saying one thing and
you're hearing another.
That creates a rupture in arelationship.
And so whatever, howeversignificant the rupture is, the
repair has to be commensuratewith that.
And so what's interesting to meis there's probably only six,
maybe seven repentant Psalms inthe book of Psalms.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
That means something.
I feel like.
If you ask most people, theycould probably name Psalm 51,
David's created me a clean heart, oh God.
And maybe one other one.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, psalm 130, psalm 6.
You can argue Psalm 32, butPsalm 32 is really a
reorientation.
It's a Psalm of thanksgivingand praise but it's on the back
end of confession and repentance.
But the reason why I say thatis that Psalm 51 was my gateway
into the book of Psalms becauseI felt myself to be so acutely a
sinner and Psalm 51 gave melanguage to articulate my
(36:21):
experience to God when I hadruptured the relationship.
Psalm 51 gave me language tocome back to God and articulate
my rupture and then experiencerepair.
Because the psalmist I love itDavid did some really messed up
things before Psalm 51, but hedoesn't bank on him being good
enough to deserve repair.
He banks on, according to yoursteadfast love, according to
(36:43):
your abundant mercy, blot out mytransgressions right, like you.
Repair this because yourperfection in relation to me
deals with all of myimperfections in relation to you
.
Your infinite abundance towardsme deals with all of my
deficits towards you.
That's the only way the Bibleteaches us to really relate to
(37:04):
God as God is.
And so rupture and repair.
A few weeks ago, damienpreached on Blessed are those
who mourn, and he made up theword.
There's repentance andlamentance.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Oh yeah, People can go look at the transcript.
It's still in there.
Lamentance.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Lamentance.
So rupture and repair.
If God has rupturedrelationship with us, which I'm
telling you, the Psalms give uscategories to say God can.
We can feel God rupturingrelationship with us.
He doesn't meet ourexpectations.
He falls short of what we, ofthe standards we hold him to,
and God's not shy about that.
He inspires by the spirit awhole bunch of Psalms, even
(37:42):
Jeremiah, the lamentations.
There's all these ways in whichthe Bible prepares us that
we're gonna experience rupturesin our relationship with God.
Now it's got to blame.
No, god is perfect, he'sfaithful, he's good in all of
his ways, all that's true.
But he's so kind he recognizesthat we will experience rupture
from him.
That'll be our experience of it.
(38:04):
And so he gives us lament inorder to deal with our
experience of God rupturingrelationship with us.
And then he teaches us how torepent to deal with our ruptures
in relationship with him.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yeah, it's probably even, as you're saying, that
it's probably worth noting.
Rupture is I'm trying to thinkhow to say this without accusing
anyone or anything, or evenusing anecdotes that are
personal but because Iexperienced rupture, it actually
doesn't necessarily mean thereis rupture.
(38:36):
Yes, and so it's even incontinuity with things we've
just been talking about of um.
I had a friend telling me theother day about an experience he
had where, um, yeah, he hasthese ongoing experiences with
another person.
I have to be vague to make sureI don't get too many details,
but he said sometimes he onlyfinds out about the rupture when
(38:56):
the person comes to repair, andso it's like I didn't even know
we had a problem.
And then they show up and likehey, I'm sorry, I've just been
mean to you and you're like wereyou?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Did you?
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Or you're like I was passive, aggressive and it's
like I guess so, and so it'sjust.
I think that just to illustrate, it's like yes, we will
experience rupture in ourrelationship with God because of
unmet expectations.
It's not to say that therupture has actually happened,
and that's actually common amongpeer to peer relationships of I
expected you to do something,you didn't do it.
(39:31):
I experienced rupture.
You weren't aware of myexpectation because I didn't
name it, so you don't experienceanything in that situation.
But there's a rift now and it'sreally on me to repair the
rupture.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yes, well, and I think that illustration, kind of
on the horizontal plane, isreally helpful because it goes
back to where we started talkingabout this, which is rupture
can occur through a variety ofways and it might be unknown to
you, and you know like I canexperience God distant in my
life at times, and one of thefirst things I do is I pray
(40:06):
Psalm 139, search me, o God, andknow my heart, try me and know
my thoughts, see if there be anygrievous way in me and lead me
in the way everlasting.
And then I listen Like will theHoly Spirit reveal to me convict
, the world of sin,righteousness and judgment?
Will the Holy Spirit come andshow me ways in which I've
ruptured my relationship withGod and need to repair that?
And then, if something comes tothe surface, maybe I've been
(40:29):
cultivating resentment towardsanother person, maybe I've been,
you know, having thoughtsinternally that are ways in
which are living outside of therealm of where God would have me
.
Maybe I've been, you know,harboring bitterness towards him
.
Maybe I've been dealing withenvy, or these are all internal
things, right, and God'swillingness to reveal those and
say, hey, you've ruptured therelationship, you've drawn away
(40:51):
from me in these things, andthen I repair it by repenting,
or I repair it.
I deal with it by articulatingmy experience of God's rupturing
with me.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Like the Psalm that you drew on, that's exactly
right, so I can remember.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
This is where we'll close, because I want to
illustrate for my own life waysin which I've felt the secure
attachment of God beingstrengthened.
So, in other words, hear me saylike this is something, as you
said a moment ago, cultivated,developed, strengthened over
time, and I'm trying to give youpractical ways to do that.
Feel the attunement of God asyou pray through the Psalms.
Experience the containment ofGod as you pour out your heart
(41:28):
before him.
Know what it's like to ruptureand repair with God, whether
he's ruptured or you've rupturedor you've experienced him as
rupturing, I should say.
In 2018, my wife and I wentthrough a season of infertility
and we didn't know if we couldget pregnant, and I can remember
distinctly us being so worndown through that process of
(41:50):
unknown and just the.
If anybody's gone throughinfertility, you know that the
monthly cycle is one of hope anddespair hope and despair, and
it's painful and arduous and itwears on you and endurance is
really low.
And so we Alana, my wife and Itook up Psalm 77, one of my
favorite lament Psalms, becauseit asks six questions about
whether or not God is who hesays he is.
(42:12):
I mean, listener, do you everfeel like God is not who he says
he is?
So did the psalmist, so didAsaph in Psalm 77.
So did I, in under my carportwith my wife, and so we just
articulate God has yourcompassion run out Like, are you
not the God who says befruitful and multiply?
Aren't you the God who opensthe womb?
What are you doing right now?
(42:32):
I remember saying I know ofpeople who have been given
children that they did not wantthem.
They got pregnant withoutdesiring it and they groaned
because of that.
I know of abortions thathappened because people got
pregnant and they didn't wantthat baby.
Here are two people who want tohave a child and want to raise
them in the fear and instructionof the Lord, and you won't give
(42:53):
us a child.
What kind of God does that?
Why would you hold this out assomething?
So you can hear the tone LikeI'm.
I'm challenging, I'm bringinganger, I'm contending with the
Holy one because he invites usto do that, because he can
attune to us, he can containthat, he can repair the ruptures
that occur.
And it was a profoundexperience.
I'm telling you about it nowbecause my memory didn't delete
(43:17):
it like it does most of ourhuman experiences.
In fact, it was a moment whereI felt I had the experience of
feeling, felt by God, because hecould hold space for me to pour
out the contents of my heart,to contain it, to connect with
me there, to create a secureattachment, to bind, to
strengthen that bond between Godand I, and so that's my
encouragement to the listenerwherever you are, those are ways
(43:40):
in which you can move towardsGod and we'll pick up some more
things next time we talk.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Sounds good, we'll look forward to next time.
Welcome to another episode of the All About Podcast
.
I'm your host, Nate Claiborne,and I'm here once again with
Pastor Benjamin Kant.
How are we doing, Ben?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nate doing well.
Looking forward to talkingabout the Psalms and secure
attachment.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That's right.
This is episode two in thissort of mini-series that we're
doing.
So a couple episodes ago weintroduced people to the
connection between these twoconcepts of the Psalms of Refuge
as being kind of a big kind ofcontainer for a bunch of
different types of Psalms, andthen this concept of secure
attachment that we're drawingfrom psychological literature.
(00:48):
So we sort of put those twothings next to each other and
said look at this.
But we didn't go into a lot ofdetail on either one of them.
And so that's what we're here todo today is to kind of give a
little more technicolor to thisidea of secure attachment, or
even just attachment in general,like what is it?
How does it develop, how doesit fall apart?
(01:10):
How does it get reestablished?
And one of the lingeringquestions I'm sure listeners
have if they really listen tothe last one.
That's not a shot at thelisteners, I'm just saying if
you listen to the last one, Ithink we left you with a little
bit of a cliffhanger of how doyou attach to a spirit, because
most of the way we're using aconcept that's between, for
human relationships, and we'reapplying it to a human divine
(01:33):
relationship, and so there'ssome continuities,
discontinuities, that sort ofthing.
So we're going to pick a littlebit of that up today.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, that's great.
So that's really the questionwe left off on is okay, if the
Psalms this was my argument in anutshell, the number one the
human experience, particularlyfrom the nervous system up, so
(02:08):
like from a very basic level ofour experience of what it feels
like to have the security of arefuge.
So that's really the point ofcontact that I made between the
book of Psalms and the idea orthe concept of secure attachment
.
So then the next question wouldbe hey, we all know what it's
(02:29):
like to be a child who's afraidand runs to their mom or dad, or
to be the parent that theirchild runs to and you pick them
up, or you get picked up and youget held in those arms and you
experience a physical securityin the arms of a caregiver and,
for the record, that is afundamental human need.
(02:49):
In other words, if you don't getthat, if you don't have that,
it will profoundly distort yourhuman growth and development.
That's one of the things thatwe've learned from attachment
theory.
There's that interestingpsychological experiment they
did on monkeys where they put Ithink it was rhesus monkeys in a
cage and they put them with abottle of milk and then a wire
(03:14):
monkey that was covered in furand the rhesus monkey would
spend all day on the fur,basically, and would leave the
fur to go drink some milk andthen run back to the fur and
these infant rhesus monkeys.
One of the things they realizedfrom that was the importance of
physical touch, the importanceof proximity to this what seemed
(03:37):
like a mother figure.
This is kind of messed up thatthey did this to monkeys right,
they're not allowed to do stufflike this anymore, it's even
worth pointing out for therecord.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
A lot of the things we have learned through
experimentation in the early tomid-20th century cannot happen
anymore for a variety of reasons, and yet somehow we're still
benefiting from the insights.
Yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Like that one, we can still do it with rats, I think,
because they're such lowerorder mammals or something I
don't even know.
There's such lower order mammalsor something I don't even know,
and so to that, if physicalproximity is such a big deal,
the question remains how do wesecurely attach or how do we
find refuge in a God who isspirit?
And I said this last time Ihave zero tolerance for a
(04:21):
sentimental answer to thatquestion, and the reason why is
because I've sat with enoughpeople who have chronic anxiety.
I've experienced anxiety andfear so acutely that a
sentimental answer means nothingto you in those moments, and so
I don't wanna do that to ourlisteners.
I don't wanna give you somesentimentality about like just
believe more and everything'sbetter.
That does more harm than good,and so I'm really wrestling this
(04:44):
down and I don't know that Ihave an answer that is so good
that it's like steadfast in theface of the harsh corners of
reality that we experience.
But I'm working towards that.
So this is me kind of workingthat out with you, Nate, in our
list.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I mean, we're both presenting ideas that we've
thought through, but we're alsothinking out loud.
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yep.
So here's my from attachmentliterature.
One of the things that waspresented by John Bowlby was
this idea of internal workingmodels, and I think this has a
lot of potential to answer thequestion I'm talking about.
So an internal working model isbasically you have enough
experiences with a primarycaregiver to where you actually
(05:26):
internalize that caregiver andyou almost think about it like
they're imprinted on your psyche.
They're imprinted on yousomewhere internally and so you
are.
This is true for every humanbeing.
You first recognize the otherbefore you have a sense of self.
So there's something thathappens in infants into
toddlerhood where they begin torecognize themselves in a mirror
(05:49):
.
But a lot of times babies don'tknow that that's if you point
to you holding them in themirror, they can say that's
daddy or that's mommy in themirror but, they can't notice
that.
that's them in the mirror,because we all develop a sense
of the other before we develop asense of self.
It's a really big deal, and sowhat internal working models are
(06:10):
talking about is our ability toactually internalize the other
into ourselves such that wecarry around our caregivers with
us even when we're not withthem.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, just a psychological point even.
To add onto that is, weactually can't have a sense of
self apart from the sense ofother, which is why it has to
develop in that direction.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yes, that's so good.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I have to be aware of the outside world that is not
me before I can have a clearersense of what is me in relation
to my caregivers, mysurroundings, my context and
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That's exactly right, which actually is like a fatal
blow to expressive individualism, the idea that the world would
be a better place if I wouldjust turn inward, search my
heart, find out who I am andthen live that out, you know, on
the display for everybody elseto experience, or maybe endure
in some cases.
Right Um, that, that is the,that is one of the fundamental
(07:00):
narratives of our culturalmoment, and the problem is is
that you don't have anindividual you to express that's
not bound up in relationshipwith other people.
There is no self-existence fora human being.
There is only you, existing inrelation in relation to God,
first and foremost creatorcreature, but then in existence,
(07:21):
or in relation to your primarycaregivers and to your friends
and family, and you know thosekinds of people.
That's a really big deal.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, and the irony of all that is that the roots of
this expressive individualismwas developed by people who were
not individualistic Like they,so it's like it's.
The way forward is kind of ayes to the expressive piece and
the no to the individualism, butnot a both and conjunction of
the two, because of some of thethings you were just saying is
it is the expression of the self, is a way to unite yourself to
(07:51):
other people, not as a way toshow how unique and special you
are.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yes, wow, yeah, that is.
That is quite a different waythan we talk about it today.
And when I say we talk about, Imean like every Disney movie,
right, I mean like the versionthat's out there now does not
work 80% of the top songs on thetop 50 on Spotify right now
probably have some version ofexpressive individualism
expressed in it.
(08:15):
So here's a quote from DianeLangberg, who is a Christian
psychologist who has written andworks in a lot in the realm of
abuse spiritual, sexual,physical abuse and so this is a
comment about abuse survivorsand how they relate to God in
light of their abuse, and so,again, this is relevant to this
(08:35):
concept of internal workingmodels.
I think here's what she says,quote we see that many survivors
exhibit this quality ofthinking frozen in time, so I'm
going to pause there for amoment.
What Diane Langberg is sayinghow we learn about the abstract
(09:04):
or the unseen think.
Your view of God is from theconcrete, in the scene Think
your relationships with otherpeople, and God's okay with this
.
In fact, he designed us this way.
It's why the Bible is full ofmetaphors, because he knows to
talk about God being.
This, like substantialimmutable being, is an
abstraction To talk about, tosay God is my rock.
Immutable being is anabstraction.
(09:27):
To talk about.
To say God is my rock is a veryconcrete way to talk about God.
To talk about God as my strongtower is a very concrete way to
talk about God, because we'veseen giant boulders and maybe
we've been inside of strongtowers before.
So God actually designed us toexperience the concrete and the
seen and then to extrapolatefrom that to the abstract and
the unseen.
Now God is not merely anabstraction.
(09:49):
God is closer to us than we areto ourselves, as Augustine says
.
He is very real, very personal,very concrete in that sense.
But our views, our thoughts,our concepts, the image of God
that we have in our mind, ourGod image, as psychologists
would put it, is an abstractionin its own right.
I'm reading a book by GeorgeMacDonald right now and he says
(10:11):
something to the effect of weall have views of God, and
there's probably as manydifferent views of God as there
are human beings who have viewsof God.
And yet there is some level ofproximity to the reality of who
God is actually like that all ofthose views of God fall along
that spectrum.
I just thought that's a powerfulway to put it.
Like Nate, you and I probably,if we took a test that had like
(10:33):
500 questions about God on it,would probably score pretty
similarly in our views of God.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
That's my hunch.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
And some of that's.
You know our own formation andtraining and the books we read,
the people we think with, andall that.
And yet what he's talking aboutis not your creedal,
confessional view of God, butyour actual experience, your
beliefs about God, and thatthat's probably as diverse as
there are number of people.
But there's a continuum ofproximity to who God actually is
, the reality of who Godactually is, that our beliefs
(11:03):
about God fall on.
And what Diane Langeberg issaying is that one of the
primary ways you can fall on acontinuum that makes you believe
things about God that are farfrom who he is is if you've had
really adverse experiences inrelationship with human beings,
particularly abusive experiences.
So she goes on.
She says one area that thisprofoundly impacts is the
(11:25):
spiritual.
God is viewed through the lensof abuse.
I just want to pause and saythere are listeners who are
hearing us talk right now, whothat sentence is true for you.
God is viewed through the lensof abuse and I don't know, as I
say that, what that sounds liketo you or what you feel even as
I say that, as I say that, whatthat sounds like to you or what
(11:45):
you feel even as I say that butI think it brings God heartache
on your behalf, not in the senseof he's mad at you, not in the
sense of he's scolding orscowling over you, in the sense
of he longs for you to know himas the tenderhearted father, the
God and father of our LordJesus Christ.
He longs for you to know him ashe truly is.
But he understands I think hegenuinely understands why you
(12:08):
might view him through the lensof abuse.
And so Diane Langberg goes on.
She says who God is and whatGod thinks about.
The survivor is understood basedon who daddy was, or mommy, or
a grandfather, or a youth pastoror whoever.
They have learned about love,trust, hope, faith through the
experience of sexual abuse.
She's talking about that kindof abuse in particular.
(12:30):
They've also learned about theunseen through the visible.
The ins and outs of theordinary life have taught them
many lessons about who theythink God is.
That is why a therapist orpastor may have the experience
of speaking the truths ofscripture to a survivor, truths
that are desperately needed andyet finding that they seem to
have no impact.
(12:51):
I'm going to pause again.
Does anybody else have thatexperience where you read the
Bible or you hear a great sermonabout the love of God, the
kindness of God, the mercy ofGod, the generosity of God, and
they seem to have no impact onyou, even though they're truths
that you desperately need.
Another way to say this is thetruth doesn't feel true.
If you've had that experience,you're probably in the realm of
(13:13):
your attachment.
You're probably in the realm ofyour internal working model of
God and you've come by ithonestly.
You've probably got reallylegitimate stories and reasons
why you might conceptualize oreven feel God to be like that.
So we'll go on.
This is the end of the quote.
These truths and principles,they don't sink in.
Many times survivors can speakeloquently of the truths of
scripture, but on anexperiential level, their lives
(13:34):
are lived out in the context ofwhat the abuse taught them.
Wow, intellectually, truth isrooted in the word of God.
Experientially or personallyapplied, the truth is rooted in
the lessons of abuse.
So as I read that, nate, I'mcurious how that strikes you.
That comes from a work she hascalled the Spiritual Impact of
Sexual Abuse.
What does that stir up in?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
you.
Yes, it makes me think just howsignificant experience is.
I'm working on a paper rightnow that's really kind of
arguing that all all theologystarts in experience for better,
like, and it's not even like a,for better or for worse.
It's not even like a.
This is bad, we should fix it.
(14:17):
It's just more of a recognitionthat, like, this is reality,
this is just reality.
Is that my experience is thegrid through which I make sense
of theological claims and sothere is a.
In the case of abuse, like whatyou're reading in this quote,
there's a barrier to actuallyunderstanding those theological
(14:37):
claims truly.
I mean, maybe there's not abarrier to understanding,
there's a barrier to trustingthat they're true, to actually
feeling them for themselves.
Yes, and instead it is, yeah,intellectually I understand how
all that fits together, but Idon't experience that in any way
.
Yes, or it's just an abstractexercise, almost in the sense of
(14:58):
like.
I can tell you a lot aboutancient mythology, but that
doesn't make me think any ofit's real.
Right, like I understand it, Icould explain it.
It's like I think it just mademe think oh yeah, I think that
is.
One of the problems in theologyin our contemporary situation
is that a lot of people canexplain it, but it doesn't
actually impact their livesbecause of the experiential grid
(15:21):
that it has to work through.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, so well said, and I think that's worth
pointing out, what you're sayingabout theology.
We would make a distinctionbetween God's revelation to us
in scripture, which isauthoritative and has the role
of being the standard by whichwe judge all of our theology.
But theology is done by persons, right?
(15:42):
And so those persons bring theirpersonality, they bring who
they are to the text whenthey're theologizing, when
they're reflecting on the Biblein light of their personal
experience and in light of thesituations that they're in,
whether those are culturalmoments or personal situations,
like there's theologies thatcome out of World War II that
are really influenced by theexperience of World War II,
(16:05):
right.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Juergen Moltmann is a prime example.
Somebody who actually fought in, was prisoner of war, saw
people get firebombed and thenhas to write this theological.
He doesn't have to write thistheological work, but in his
work, the Crucified God, hisstarting point is that God has
to suffer with us.
To be God I wouldn't say to bea divine being, but if we're
(16:30):
going to take God seriously, hehas to be able to suffer with us
.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Wow yeah, in light of his experience.
In light of his experience,he's holding God to the standard
of his experience in a lot ofways, which is different than to
even to point it out here.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Just as we're, we don't want to get too far into
the weeds of theological method.
But it's different to say weall start with experience.
It's another thing to sayexperience is the norm, yes, or
is the authority of?
What determines what is or isnot true?
And it's a very tricky line tolike.
I do want to take my experienceinto account, yeah, but I don't
want it to be the thing bywhich I judge everything's truth
(17:02):
or falsehood.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, I think that's right, and the cheeky way to put
that is there's a distinctionbetween what you feel and what
is real.
We all hope that that's true.
Right yeah, that what is real.
Even when we talk capital R,our ultimate reality is the
Trinity and the kingdom.
Right, like?
That's what is ultimately real,and yet what we feel is it
(17:25):
falls short of that quite a bit.
And one of the reasons why thePsalms and secure attachments so
helpful to me is it helps giveus some language and categories
to understand and grapple with.
Well, why is what we feel sofar?
Why is there such a gap betweenwhat is real and what we feel?
Like?
So plenty of people know thebiblical view of who God is and
plenty of people don't.
So plenty of people know thebiblical view of who God is, Um,
and plenty of people don't.
But plenty of people do.
(17:46):
In their attachment schema, um,their internal working models
are actually preventing themfrom from feeling, from
experiencing the reality of whoGod is.
Um.
And so good news, um, dallasWillard and Jim Wilder have this
book called renovated Um, andin there Jim Wilder really
argues uh, what if weconceptualized, what if we
(18:09):
thought about salvation as a newattachment, a new secure
attachment Like what if wethought about all that Jesus
came to do, all that God inChrist has done by his spirit to
reconcile us to himself,reconcile us to himself.
What if we thought about that inthe context of that was all.
There's a lot of work on God'spart to bring us into a new,
(18:32):
securely attached relationshipwith God.
I love that.
I actually love that idea.
I think it's really powerful.
This is what they say.
Quote is salvation itself a newand active attachment with God
that forms and transforms ouridentities?
In the human brain, identityand character are formed by whom
we love.
Attachments are powerful andlong lasting Ideas can be
changed much more easily.
Salvation through a new lovingattachment to God which changes
(18:55):
our identities, would be a veryrelational way to understand our
salvation.
We would be both saved andtransformed through attachment,
love from to and with God.
That's what they're arguing andI think it's persuasive.
It's compelling to me that away to conceptualize salvation
is that it's a new, secureattachment to.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
God.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
And that God did a lot of work in order to bring us
back into that.
And one of the things weunderstand about salvation is
that there's a past, present andfuture tense to it.
And so, in light of that, ifGod has saved us, because he's
reconciled us to himself throughJesus, by his spirit, those of
us who are listening, who areregenerated, we've been made new
by the Holy Spirit, in unionwith Jesus.
(19:39):
Let's talk about that processin the middle, the present tense
, the ongoing nature ofsalvation, the way in which God
is healing and restoring us to asecurely attached relationship
with him, because I think that'swhere we can get pretty
practical with this.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, it makes me think of in therapy, when you're
trying to help someone workthrough this.
They have to go.
I don't know if you call it aprocess or not.
You're the therapist here.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Trust the process mate.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, trust the process.
You use language of earnedsecure attachment, of this idea
of if someone doesn't reallyknow what a secure attachment
feels like in their life, theycan achieve that over the course
of time with their therapist.
To some extent they learn whatit's like and then that gives
(20:25):
them an experience that they cannow use to evaluate other
relationships and work throughother relationships
appropriately.
It feels like this would maponto that as well.
In this case, you're notearning it.
In the truth, you have tobracket that out.
When we're talking aboutsalvation, there's a sense in
which it is a thing that doesdevelop.
(20:45):
Develop.
It doesn't just like oh, I'msaved, I'm now securely attached
, I feel everything totallydifferent.
All my relationships are goingto change.
It's a in principle.
The attachment has now beenmade, yep, but my experience of
it, my understanding of it, myway of actually mapping it on
onto other relationships, isgoing to take time to develop.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, I think that's right, it's, it's cultivated,
it's strengthened, it's healed,it's uh, it's built, it's
developed, like all those wordswould be ways of getting at what
you said when you said earned,like it's, it's, it's hard one
almost, and that's true betweena therapist and their client,
right, like therapists workreally hard to cultivate a
(21:28):
really strong bond, a securelyattached bond with their client.
Because we believe that therelationship, what's called the
working alliance, between thetherapist and the client is the
primary source of healing, atleast on a horizontal set.
In the horizontal sense, theprimary source of healing is the
Holy Spirit, but but on ahorizontal sense, it's that it's
(21:50):
that working alliance, thatsecurely attached relationship
between the counselor and theirclient, um, that enables healing
to occur, and that that's, itis earned.
It's not given.
In that sense, right, even ifsomebody might walk into the
room and say, oh, I totallytrust you.
It's like, do you though?
Maybe you shouldn't Maybe youreally I should show you that
I'm trustworthy, and so, in asimilar sense, I genuinely
(22:12):
believe God is glad to workreally hard to earn your trust.
Like I really believe that, Ireally believe that there's a
way in which God is in some waysbending over backwards in order
to show himself bothtrustworthy and true, and that
starts with the gospel, right.
It starts with him sending hisson and his spirit, but he's
(22:34):
doing it in real life, in realtime in our lives today, and so
one of the ways I want to talkabout that is using these
attachment categories ofattunement, containment, rupture
and repair.
So these are three things in theattachment literature.
Attunement is when you are ableto see into someone and to
(22:58):
essentially bring yourself tosee them so well that you're
seeing their internal state.
Now, we do this often, right,if you are around somebody who
just seems like they're kind ofin a low mood state, right, you
might just check in with them.
You might say hey, nate, areyou doing okay today?
Now, you didn't say anything,there was nothing explicit in
(23:20):
that sense, but I'm attuned towhat would be your internal
state, given some non-verbals,some ways in which I'm
experiencing you inconversations, those kind of
things.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
That's a form of attunement.
Now, the Psalms are profoundlyattuned to the human experience.
John Calvin says that it's ananatomy of all parts of the
human soul.
You're not going to findanything in human experience
that's not represented in thebook of Psalms.
That's a really big deal.
Um, I believe it's Augustine, Ithink it's in his um, uh
(23:54):
teachings on the Psalms.
Uh, he, he describes the Psalmslike a mirror and he says what
happens in the mirror is thePsalms show ourselves to us.
As we look at the Psalms, so wesee our own lives represented
there in very real and clearways.
But then they reflect our livesback to us in the presence of
(24:15):
God.
And so, in that sense, thePsalms themselves.
God's given us this book ofPsalms because the words there,
the experiences that are there,they attune with our experience.
And so praying through thePsalms on a regular basis,
having a regular diet of kind ofdevouring, and feasting on the
book of Psalms, actually, Ithink, brings us into this
(24:36):
experiential nature of us beingfelt by God in his attunement to
our experience.
Before I move on to containment, I'm curious what that sounds
like to you, Nate, or what eventhat evokes in your mind.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Well, it makes me think of we talked about.
I think we touched on this lastepisode.
We talked about the sense offeeling felt, which is maybe a
next level of that.
But just attunement is just.
It's being able to sense andfeel your way through your
environment, including otherpeople.
That's right.
And so you walk into a room andyou're able to sense like, yeah
(25:12):
, something's going on in here.
You're attuned to what'shappening, but you can narrow
your attunement, the focus of it, to an individual person and be
like I can just tell you'reanxious.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Everything about your body language is telling me
that, or I can tell you'rereally excited.
What?
What you know?
The way you're smiling isdifferent.
What happened Like?
So just it's.
It's being very attentive toenvironmental cues, but
specifically as it relates topeople.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, that's good.
Well, when we use language likethat in our culture, we talk
about somebody having an energy,like, oh they just well, you
just brought a certain energyinto the room, right?
Or you might talk about.
I remember I was asked this guyif I could pray for him, who
isn't a follower of Jesus, andhe said, yeah, that'd be great.
So I prayed for him and then hesent me a text afterwards.
He's like hey, thanks so muchfor those positive vibes, and I
(26:05):
was like that's what youunderstand.
That just happened right there.
And it gave him positive vibes.
Right, me doing my spiritualthing in his presence gave him
positive vibes, yeah, and so wetalk about this idea of vibing,
which has, I think, comes fromlike the idea of vibration.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I had no idea this is where we were going, totally
Neither did we.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Vibrations and attunement has musical ideas to
it.
And the next step afterattunement is resonance.
And so first, Nate, I attune toyou or you attune to me, and so
I see into what your internalstate is like, and then
resonance is when I begin tofeel some of your internal state
.
Now we all know that we'veexperienced anxiety being
(26:42):
contagious.
We've all experienced what it'slike to be in a room where
there's just a sense of sobrietyor somberness in the room.
Maybe somebody's got some heavynews or something like that.
We've also experienced being ata concert and there's just this
like really high energy andwhat's happening?
Our nervous systems areresonating with each other.
Our right brain to right brainresonance is happening.
(27:03):
This is a profound thing thathuman beings are capable of
doing, and I'm saying because ofinternal working models.
We're capable of doing thatwith people or persons that are
not physically present, which Ithink is a really big deal.
So one of the things I like todo is, just so that you know,
not like proof texting from thePsalms like is to take just the
five Psalms of the day.
(27:23):
So today's the 25th, multiplythat by five.
We're talking about Psalms 121through 125.
I think by the third episodepeople are going to understand
your math.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I know I got to figure out how to do that better
.
I've always been bad at mathand so I'm even worse at
explaining it.
It so.
So, psalm 123, um, I spent some, I spent the year 2020,
memorizing the Psalms of Ascent,which are 120 through 134.
Um, and when I was, uh, when Iwas memorizing the Psalm or 135,
I think when I was memorizingthem, uh, everybody knows what
(27:53):
the year 2020 was like.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I was in.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I was in Psalm 123, uh, in April, which was kind of
the I mean, this was the dogdays of 2020.
Like this, is when it wasgetting really bad.
We were all still in lockdownhere in Orlando, this kind of
stuff and I read Psalm 123 andthe psalmist says this have
mercy upon us, o Yahweh.
Have mercy upon us, for we havehad more than enough.
(28:17):
And I experienced attunement inthat moment.
I thought, wow, this Psalm isarticulating my experience.
I've had more than enough.
And then it gave me words.
Oh Lord, would you have mercyon us?
I've had more than enough.
I've had more than enough Zoomcalls.
I've had more than enough, youknow, mask mandates.
(28:38):
I've had more than enoughlockdowns, more than enough of
the ways in which 2020 was justchallenging for all of us, right
, and so that's an example ofhow the Psalms connect so
acutely to our internalexperience and then give us
words to bring them into thepresence of God, into
relationship with Him, so that Ican experience His attunement.
Now, containment, so that'sattunement.
(29:00):
Containment is what it soundslike, which is when an
attachment figure can createspace.
We use that languagetherapeutically a lot.
They create space with theirvery presence.
A way I like to talk about thisis it's a form of hospitality.
You've been around people whohave a hospitable presence.
You can come and be around themand you feel like you don't
(29:20):
have to put on a mask.
You feel like you don't have tobe somebody.
You're not why?
Because they have a hospitablepresence.
They know what containmentlooks like.
But containment goes furtherand it looks like this Imagine a
teenager who just got introuble for being out past their
curfew and their mom or theirdad holds them accountable.
They play the role of mom anddad and they say hey, listen,
(29:42):
you're not allowed to come backpast curfew.
And the teenager gets so upsetbecause there's hormones and
emotions, all these things, andthey say well, I hate you.
And they stomp up the steps andthey slam the door of the
bedroom door, right?
What mom and dad have to do inthat moment, if they're
attachment figures for thatchild which they are is they
have to contain that emotion.
(30:03):
Now, that might have beenprofoundly painful.
They might have been incrediblyangry that their child said that
in that moment.
What mom and dad cannot do inthat moment is go, I hate you
too.
Why?
Because they are supposed to bemore emotionally and
psychologically mature thantheir teenager and their
(30:28):
stronger, more mature brain issupposed to be able to regulate
itself so that they can create acontainer to regulate their
teenager's brain.
Now, some of us never got this,and now we're 40 and we don't
have strong, emotionally,psychologically mature brains,
and so we can't barely handlethose moments and we do things
we regret and we have to dealwith those things.
Things escalate and spiral.
Why ate you too.
Or you know you're the mostungrateful little Brad, or you
(30:49):
know these things happen and weknow that they happen, and they
cause us deep pains of guilt andshame afterwards when we
remember and recall them.
But what containment does isyou have somebody who's a
stronger, more mature brain thatcan create an environment for
you to come and pour out thecontents of your soul, and they
can create a space, a containerfor that.
(31:10):
Psalms talk often about pouringout your hearts before God
Psalm 62, verse 8.
And so this is one of the wayswe can experience a secure
attachment with God as we pourout the container of our souls
into the containment of God'spresence.
And the Psalms have morelaments than they have praises,
(31:30):
which means that the Psalmsagain train us in secure
attachment.
They train us to articulatethese experiences to God.
Let me just give you one, andthen, nate, I'd love to hear
your thoughts about this.
Psalm 74, verse 11.
This is one of my favoritePsalms of lament.
This is the Psalmist talking toGod.
If you didn't think you couldtalk to God like this, read the
Psalms and you'll you'll learnthat you can.
Verse 11.
(31:51):
Why do you hold back your hand?
Your right hand, take it fromthe fold of your garment and
destroy them.
Okay so, this is the context.
The Psalmist Okay so this isthe context.
The psalmist feels like they'reexperiencing injustice and they
want God to do something aboutit.
And they say in good Hebrewpoetic idiom thing Get your
hands out of your pockets, god,do something.
(32:12):
That's what the psalmist issaying.
Take it from the fold of yourgarment and destroy them.
If you didn't know, you couldtell God to take his hands out
of his pockets.
You can think about thatSomebody just standing there
with their hands in theirpockets when they should be
doing something right.
You're angry.
Get your hands out of yourpockets, do something about this
Act.
That's what the psalmist justsaid to God.
Why?
Because the psalmist is angrythat God's allowing them to
(32:34):
experience what they'reexperiencing and they have no
problem telling him about it.
Why?
Because they're securelyattached.
They know that God is acontainer for their worst
emotions.
Now, is this theologically true?
Absolutely not.
It's not true.
God is actively involved inevery situation.
God, what people intend forevil, god intends for good.
He works things out for thegood of those who are called
(32:55):
according to his purpose.
Right so?
Romans 8, 28,.
This famous passage.
So this is not theologicallytrue.
What the psalmist isarticulating, god doesn't care
really.
He wants the real you to cometo the real God to pour out the
contents of your soul, to bringthe reality of where you are,
matters more to God than ifyou're being theologically
accurate Now.
Theological accuracy matters toGod.
I believe that.
(33:16):
But, in these moments, he wantsto create a container for you to
pour out your groanings, youranger, your rage, your vengeance
into his presence, and so thathe can contain that there.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, well, it's even .
I mean, even in this, in thisspace.
It's the experience of thepsalmist is God's just standing
there with his hands in hispockets?
That's right, and so it's like,in some sense, it is true,
because you're relaying.
This is how I'm experiencingyou right now.
You're pouring that out.
You're not necessarily makingcause it.
I mean, if we, if you read thenext verse, he immediately like
(33:49):
does the truth shift to in avery metaphorical way?
Cause I don't know if listenersare comfortable with God
breaking the heads of seamonsters and dividing carcasses
to create the world.
But that's what the nextsection says, but it's.
It is this?
Like he's almost taking it back, like this is how I feel you
are right now.
On the other hand, I know thisis not who you are and then lays
(34:11):
out these are things I know,but this is what I'm
experiencing from you right now.
Do something about it.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
So good, you're right , cause that's I read verse 11,.
Verse 12 says yet God, my King,is from of old, working
salvation in the midst of theearth.
So to your point, they'rejuxtaposing what they feel and
what is real.
In their way they bring this toGod.
That's a really big deal,because some of us stall out or
get, you know, start spinningour tires in our resentment
(34:38):
towards God, and some of thereason why that is because we
don't think we have permissionto articulate that to God.
Another reason for that is thatwe don't actually do the next
move that the psalmist does,which is they praise God for who
they believe God is in reality,even when they don't feel that
to be true.
And so that third categorywhich I gave, which was
(35:00):
attunement, containment, andthen the third one is rupture
and repair.
So this is a broader categorythan repentance and forgiveness.
This is a, this is a categoryof any kind of strain or break
in a relationship.
So that happens on accident,right?
You?
We call these missing eachother, right?
Martin Buber had this categoryof a miss meet, which is when
you is, when the I and the thoudon't really connect with each
(35:23):
other very well, and we getmismeets all the time.
You're saying one thing andyou're I'm saying one thing and
you're hearing another.
That creates a rupture in arelationship.
And so whatever, howeversignificant the rupture is, the
repair has to be commensuratewith that.
And so what's interesting to meis there's probably only six,
maybe seven repentant Psalms inthe book of Psalms.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
That means something.
I feel like.
If you ask most people, theycould probably name Psalm 51,
David's created me a clean heart, oh God.
And maybe one other one.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, psalm 130, psalm 6.
You can argue Psalm 32, butPsalm 32 is really a
reorientation.
It's a Psalm of thanksgivingand praise but it's on the back
end of confession and repentance.
But the reason why I say thatis that Psalm 51 was my gateway
into the book of Psalms becauseI felt myself to be so acutely a
sinner and Psalm 51 gave melanguage to articulate my
(36:21):
experience to God when I hadruptured the relationship.
Psalm 51 gave me language tocome back to God and articulate
my rupture and then experiencerepair.
Because the psalmist I love itDavid did some really messed up
things before Psalm 51, but hedoesn't bank on him being good
enough to deserve repair.
He banks on, according to yoursteadfast love, according to
(36:43):
your abundant mercy, blot out mytransgressions right, like you.
Repair this because yourperfection in relation to me
deals with all of myimperfections in relation to you
.
Your infinite abundance towardsme deals with all of my
deficits towards you.
That's the only way the Bibleteaches us to really relate to
(37:04):
God as God is.
And so rupture and repair.
A few weeks ago, damienpreached on Blessed are those
who mourn, and he made up theword.
There's repentance andlamentance.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Oh yeah, People can go look at the transcript.
It's still in there.
Lamentance.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Lamentance.
So rupture and repair.
If God has rupturedrelationship with us, which I'm
telling you, the Psalms give uscategories to say God can.
We can feel God rupturingrelationship with us.
He doesn't meet ourexpectations.
He falls short of what we, ofthe standards we hold him to,
and God's not shy about that.
He inspires by the spirit awhole bunch of Psalms, even
(37:42):
Jeremiah, the lamentations.
There's all these ways in whichthe Bible prepares us that
we're gonna experience rupturesin our relationship with God.
Now it's got to blame.
No, god is perfect, he'sfaithful, he's good in all of
his ways, all that's true.
But he's so kind he recognizesthat we will experience rupture
from him.
That'll be our experience of it.
(38:04):
And so he gives us lament inorder to deal with our
experience of God rupturingrelationship with us.
And then he teaches us how torepent to deal with our ruptures
in relationship with him.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yeah, it's probably even, as you're saying, that
it's probably worth noting.
Rupture is I'm trying to thinkhow to say this without accusing
anyone or anything, or evenusing anecdotes that are
personal but because Iexperienced rupture, it actually
doesn't necessarily mean thereis rupture.
(38:36):
Yes, and so it's even incontinuity with things we've
just been talking about of um.
I had a friend telling me theother day about an experience he
had where, um, yeah, he hasthese ongoing experiences with
another person.
I have to be vague to make sureI don't get too many details,
but he said sometimes he onlyfinds out about the rupture when
(38:56):
the person comes to repair, andso it's like I didn't even know
we had a problem.
And then they show up and likehey, I'm sorry, I've just been
mean to you and you're like wereyou?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Did you?
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Or you're like I was passive, aggressive and it's
like I guess so, and so it'sjust.
I think that just to illustrate, it's like yes, we will
experience rupture in ourrelationship with God because of
unmet expectations.
It's not to say that therupture has actually happened,
and that's actually common amongpeer to peer relationships of I
expected you to do something,you didn't do it.
(39:31):
I experienced rupture.
You weren't aware of myexpectation because I didn't
name it, so you don't experienceanything in that situation.
But there's a rift now and it'sreally on me to repair the
rupture.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yes, well, and I think that illustration, kind of
on the horizontal plane, isreally helpful because it goes
back to where we started talkingabout this, which is rupture
can occur through a variety ofways and it might be unknown to
you, and you know like I canexperience God distant in my
life at times, and one of thefirst things I do is I pray
(40:06):
Psalm 139, search me, o God, andknow my heart, try me and know
my thoughts, see if there be anygrievous way in me and lead me
in the way everlasting.
And then I listen Like will theHoly Spirit reveal to me convict
, the world of sin,righteousness and judgment?
Will the Holy Spirit come andshow me ways in which I've
ruptured my relationship withGod and need to repair that?
And then, if something comes tothe surface, maybe I've been
(40:29):
cultivating resentment towardsanother person, maybe I've been,
you know, having thoughtsinternally that are ways in
which are living outside of therealm of where God would have me
.
Maybe I've been, you know,harboring bitterness towards him
.
Maybe I've been dealing withenvy, or these are all internal
things, right, and God'swillingness to reveal those and
say, hey, you've ruptured therelationship, you've drawn away
(40:51):
from me in these things, andthen I repair it by repenting,
or I repair it.
I deal with it by articulatingmy experience of God's rupturing
with me.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Like the Psalm that you drew on, that's exactly
right, so I can remember.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
This is where we'll close, because I want to
illustrate for my own life waysin which I've felt the secure
attachment of God beingstrengthened.
So, in other words, hear me saylike this is something, as you
said a moment ago, cultivated,developed, strengthened over
time, and I'm trying to give youpractical ways to do that.
Feel the attunement of God asyou pray through the Psalms.
Experience the containment ofGod as you pour out your heart
(41:28):
before him.
Know what it's like to ruptureand repair with God, whether
he's ruptured or you've rupturedor you've experienced him as
rupturing, I should say.
In 2018, my wife and I wentthrough a season of infertility
and we didn't know if we couldget pregnant, and I can remember
distinctly us being so worndown through that process of
(41:50):
unknown and just the.
If anybody's gone throughinfertility, you know that the
monthly cycle is one of hope anddespair hope and despair, and
it's painful and arduous and itwears on you and endurance is
really low.
And so we Alana, my wife and Itook up Psalm 77, one of my
favorite lament Psalms, becauseit asks six questions about
whether or not God is who hesays he is.
(42:12):
I mean, listener, do you everfeel like God is not who he says
he is?
So did the psalmist, so didAsaph in Psalm 77.
So did I, in under my carportwith my wife, and so we just
articulate God has yourcompassion run out Like, are you
not the God who says befruitful and multiply?
Aren't you the God who opensthe womb?
What are you doing right now?
(42:32):
I remember saying I know ofpeople who have been given
children that they did not wantthem.
They got pregnant withoutdesiring it and they groaned
because of that.
I know of abortions thathappened because people got
pregnant and they didn't wantthat baby.
Here are two people who want tohave a child and want to raise
them in the fear and instructionof the Lord, and you won't give
(42:53):
us a child.
What kind of God does that?
Why would you hold this out assomething?
So you can hear the tone LikeI'm.
I'm challenging, I'm bringinganger, I'm contending with the
Holy one because he invites usto do that, because he can
attune to us, he can containthat, he can repair the ruptures
that occur.
And it was a profoundexperience.
I'm telling you about it nowbecause my memory didn't delete
(43:17):
it like it does most of ourhuman experiences.
In fact, it was a moment whereI felt I had the experience of
feeling, felt by God, because hecould hold space for me to pour
out the contents of my heart,to contain it, to connect with
me there, to create a secureattachment, to bind, to
strengthen that bond between Godand I, and so that's my
encouragement to the listenerwherever you are, those are ways
(43:40):
in which you can move towardsGod and we'll pick up some more
things next time we talk.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Sounds good, we'll look forward to next time.
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