Matt's Muzings
Attachment Disorder
There is an illness going around. It is certain death if it is allowed to grow. I have seen it before but I have seen it recently more clearly in me. I am not talking about SARS. It is far more sinister and harder to deal with.
Attachment disorder
I am talking about an attachment disorder. Let me explain it from events of the last few days.
As you know, we are moving. Translated that means painful change. We have had stuff stored in our garage that hasn't seen the light of day for years. We were waiting as we thought we would only be in this house for a short while. Well, 8 years later, we are finally stepping out to buy an apartment. We are moving this weekend. So, we have spent long days opening boxes, going through them all. Memories of an outreach to Russia , old friends, Joshua's childhood and more, all there before us. We are waist deep in a garage overflowing with family and life.
I become attached to it. I see a box from my old office with papers expressing long hours of work. Short stories, attempts at songs, and I do mean attempts, the start of books. I have to get rid of them all. It is like they are me… There it is. A sign of the disease showing up. When I get rid of them, I am losing myself.
Words become very important, as you don't want to throw out healthy cells with diseased cells.
Healthy cells reveal expressions of who I am. People, places and things that I enjoy and help me to remember God at work in my life.
Diseased ones are those cells that connect me literally to those things.
The material things are my identity and I lose something if I lose them. My value is diminished if I don't have them or added if I do.
The garage also gives me a unique historical perspective on this disorder. Some of those things I was once attached to and was so excited over, are now gone. I threw away a box that was a new computer 10 years ago, the computer was long gone, I can still sense the joy in getting it. It was top of the line and gave me a real sense of power and capacity. What I was once ‘attached' to, has lost its appeal to a much newer model. I then saw a box of a portable computer that is also gone. I was thrilled when I got that. Then I realize I have been longing for a new computer recently as I have had this one for two years. I know I would be happy if I could just get a new G4 portable. Or, would it be trashed in a couple years as everything else is? I know the answer, but I don't want to answer that.
We had a garage sale and I sat and watched groups of people come and pick over our family ‘stuff' and bicker on whether it was worth 2 or 3 dollars. That was a good way to test how much the disease had gotten into me. If I am my stuff, they are bickering over my value, if it is just stuff, it has no affect on my life, identity or value.
There is only one thing, unless you missed that line, only one thing, that defines me and that I am to be attached to. That is The Cross. Jesus' completed work and life is enough! It gives me my greatest joy and most clearly gives me the chance to offer what Tom Bloomer called ‘crucified excellence'. The best I can do is still an offering of worship to the one who gave me life.
My flesh longs to become attached to anything other than The Cross because it is much safer and easier. I also may be able to control it. I must never forget that I can easily, very easily, become attached to anything other than Jesus. The only way to deal with this sickness is to let God ‘clean' it up through The Cross. I can love other people and things as expressions of my love for Jesus, but it is my attachment to the vine that produces these things. He is the vine and the only source of life.
Leadership 101
A leader is very clear to never ‘attach' him or her self to anything other than The Cross. To not look to power, applause, praise or position. A leader is always aware of the temptation for this disease to set in and works hard to keep healthy. A leader serves those following him or her to not tempt them to become attached to anything other than The Cross for that would be their destruction.