Is God Attachment your Easy Button?

       In an earlier post, one of my fellow classmates challenged me to consider God attachment. I appreciated their post but really started thinking about if it is possible for us to take Christ for granted because we are so familiar with Him. Are we truly thankful every day for our relationship with God? Do we take God for granted because of this God attachment which leads to lazy detachment?

Tim Clinton and many others describe how God attachment can be when a person goes to God in a troubling time. Clinton specifically looks at four categories that a person relates to God in times of trouble: 

1. Secure attachment when a believer can count on God and God accepts them and all their flaws

2. Avoidant where God is not there for them when they need him, and they don’t need him because he is not there

3. Ambivalent when a person is too flawed for God’s help

4. Disorganized when a person is flawed beyond repair and if I turn to God, he will punish me.

              However if you look at these four, only one is a positive view of God, and ¾ look at God as a distant God. They “detach” from God because either they are beyond help or God is too good to help out evil beings. Truthfully though, this is how many of us view God, Christians and atheists alike love/hate Jesus because he has become our “easy button.” Christians pray a prayer to “Lord, help me on this quiz, help me have safe travels, help me to be have a great day.” Atheists get annoyed that we pray for some frivolous things and Christians don’t recognize that their prayers become one big wish list. Christians take God for granted to fix every little thing and essentially make Christ, a Christ of convenience.

                After reading some articles, I came across a study which concluded that some people avoid intimacy with God, specifically to avoid God attachment.  Their results found “We would expect extremely negative views of God to be relatively rare in Judeo-Christian populations. However we do believe that avoidance themes are present in relationships with God, specifically, discomfort with depending upon God and with emotional displays of affection toward God.” (p. 10) This specific article found that there is a trend that people are avoiding God, for the fear of being rejected by Him. Essentially their thought process goes “If I don’t pray or depend on God, then I won’t be disappointed when he doesn't show up.”  This is the dramatic contrasting to how we need God for every little thing,Christ of convenience, (discussed above) versus the "I don’t need God at all because that means I’m weak and dependent" perspective.  

              The true peace is found through the balance of both ideas in a true relationship with God. We should find ourselves attached to God for the relationship perspective, not the emergency situation. We should not use God as an emergency plan as God attachment describes, or avoid him because he may disappoint us. Would you like it if someone came to you and only talked to you when they needed help? Would you rather have them have a long-term friendship genuinely caring about you? God wants that relationship with you. Be attached to God in a healthy way, not a Christ of convenience way. Through God attachment, knowing He is always there, taking Him for granted, we have fallen into a place of God detachment, where we go to God because we need something from Him, not because of our relationship with Him.

               We should pursue Him for the relationship. Instead of looking at God as a “Christ of convince” an “easy button” when times are in trouble, we should maintain a consistent relationship and trust Him, regardless of our circumstances. Yes, God is a healer and a miracle worker but He is not a one quick fix pill to all of our problems. He is our Savior from destruction from our ultimate problem of sin.   Philippians 2:1-11 talks about how our relationships with God and with others should reflect Christ's humility.  My encouragement to you, do not take your relationship with God for granted, but rather treasure it.

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