When my attachment light broke as a child, it was in the “on” position. It got stuck that way. For decades, it never shut off. For others, their attachment light was off when it broke and they not only do not know how to attach but have no felt-need to do so.
Over the decades I have learned these two things (among others, of course): first, that trying to meet my deepest attachment needs with people is hopeless. Not that it doesn’t happen for fleeting moments, or even in very sweet experiences of togetherness, but we simply do not know when someone will change their minds.
The greatest attachment-pain is not when people are unwilling to attach to us, but that people who have attached to us, and have let our hearts warm up to the experience that they want to be in our lives, can change their minds at any time and for any reason. To lose an attachment is far more painful than not having one to begin with.
Second, it has become very clear to me that God’s attachment light is always “on”, but not the way it was with mine. My attachment-light was on like a metal detector always looking for the treasure of attachment with someone. God’s attachment light is on like life being lived, like a beacon of love always wanting to bless any recipient with the fullness of life.
This morning, as I was processing some broken attachments, telling Father all my messed-up and childish thoughts about how I was doing, I suddenly rounded a bend on this trail of grief and came to a viewpoint looking out over the beauty of the heart of God. And what I saw in God was PERMANENCE!
The word that popped into my head was, “IMMUTABILITY”! Immutable means unable to be changed. God, in every facet of his character, personality, and beingness, cannot change, and cannot be changed. If he says he is something, he is permanently something. Who he is is always who he is!
If Father-God says he is love, he is always love and cannot be changed from being love to any sliver or degree of change anyone could imagine or accuse. If he says he is good, there is never a time where he changes into someone who is not so. When he says he is holy, he never relates to us in unholiness. And, when God says he is truth, and his word is truth, and the Word is THE truth, and his Spirit is the Spirit of truth, he is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me… Well, it kind of would be silly to finish the thought, wouldn’t it?
My point is that in each attribute, characteristic, or personality trait of God’s being, he doesn’t change. If we attach to him by faith, and faith alone, not relying one smidgeon on anything good in us, we are his and his forever because he doesn’t change.
So, what happens when an attachment-light-always-on brokenhearted child comes to the attachment-light-always-on beloved Father complaining to him of the cruel ways people afflict attachment-pain on our broken hearts?
Answer: the Father who never changes minsters the best and most comforting changes to us so that, on any given day, we can be a bit more like him than we were the day before. We can welcome change in us because there is no change in him. We can enjoy getting to know him better knowing that he is not getting better by the way we know him. With God as our Father in heaven, we’ve got it as good as it can get, albeit with our experience of knowing God getting better every day!
God himself appeals to our broken and insecure hearts from his word. He calls to us:
God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?[1]
This is the kind of assurance God has always given his children, that he cannot change. He does not make promises only to tease us. He doesn’t give us his best intention at one time only to find he didn’t really want to do that for us when another time comes. He doesn’t think up good plans for us and then come up with something better at a later time, or decide to do that good thing for someone else instead of us. God in his beingness and his personhood and his promises simply cannot change! He is IMMUTABLE!
We are all familiar with people giving us their word. In fact, so much of our attachment-pain happens when people break their word. Their promise to be there for us is broken because they changed their minds and are convinced that changing the status of our relationship is justified.
But what about when God gives his word? Everything is different then. What he says, that is what he does. Consider this beautiful expression of assurance:
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.[2]
This is another viewpoint that could take pages of worship and praise to speak of it all, but the big-picture wonder of it is that God not only cannot change (and he himself knows his own unchangeableness), but he knows we are weak-minded children. He knows we are beat-up by the changeableness of man and the deceptions of the world, the flesh, and the devil. He knows that we are lied to left, right, and center by the father of lies and his servants (and victims). He knows we are rejected, disowned, and forsaken. Jesus himself was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, not only for what he went through while here in his ministry, but for what he feels us going through in this sin-cursed world.
The fact is that God’s character is unchangeable, but God knows we do not know that. God felt a desire to show his children “more convincingly… the unchangeable character of his purpose,” and so, even though he knew he would never change or break his promise, he still did something that was all for us, he “guaranteed” his promise “with an oath”.
So now we have “two unchangeable things”. What are they (I mean, aside from the fact that “it is impossible for God to lie”)? The “two unchangeable things” are that God made an unchangeable promise and confirmed it by an unchangeable oath. At the time, God had already promised Abraham that he would have an heir. But then he swore an oath as well, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.”[3]
Although we may need to take a tour through history to see how God’s promise to Abraham relates to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, the promises to us who trust in Jesus for salvation are just as much promised and sworn by God so that we have no reason to doubt they are true for everyone who truly believes.
How would we summarize God’s promise to those who believe in his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord? Well, let me present it in God’s own words:
Jesus said, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”[4]
The messengers of the good news about Jesus said things like this, “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”[5]
One of the most well-known promises of God regarding salvation is expressed in this way, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”[6]
The reason I began with honesty about my experiences of the painful changeableness of people is to testify that God is not only wonderfully unchangeable, but he faithfully ministers to people like me who have been shaken by many debilitating experiences of attachment-pain. He invites us to himself in utter honesty about how we are doing because HE is the one who does not change, making him the ONLY ONE who can change us for good.
Last night I was adding photos to a memory book (likely the
reason my morning began as it did). I was overwhelmed with feelings of grief
and bewilderment at the way relationships can change for the worse, and by loved
ones quite willing to change them. I had no idea that my Father in heaven was
letting me feel that Deeper to prepare me for the Higher he had waiting for me
this morning. The brokenness of attachment-pain in me is met by the blessing of
attachment-love from God my Father through attachment-love with Jesus Christ my
Lord and Savior through the attachment-love ministry of the Holy Spirit of God.
They are my three witnesses that in the constantly changing roller coasterness of
my heart, I am theirs forever. And because of that, and even more because of
them, my heart feels peace and rest that is their real gift of unchanging grace
no matter what is waiting for me in the changes of today.
© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K
1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles,
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)
