This week I spent some time studying a mother’s influence and attachment. I was struck by the similarities I was able to find between healthy child/parent attachment and healthy child/Heavenly Parent attachment. If you’ll indulge me for a minute I’d love to share.

Gordon Neufeld has studied attachment in children from infancy through adolescence and adulthood. He talks about the need for our children to have an attachment to us if we plan to have any influence on them, and how society is deteriorating because children/adolescents/even adults are putting more value and effort into the attachment with their peers instead of their progenitors and posterity. When our children (or ourselves- but for the sake of this, I’ll speak of children) attach to their peers they begin to emulate their behaviors, their values, even their ways of speaking. Soon we have a generation that is self-centered and immature and halted in their growth. They seek counsel from each other instead of those with life experience. They want to spend the majority of their time with those in the same life circumstances they are in instead of with someone who has been through that circumstance and can give perspective. There is stagnation in growth, increase in similar mistakes, and hardships that last longer than may be needful. There is a focus on self and self-contentedness instead of looking outward toward others. Now, I know the role that friends play in children as they grow is important, and how fulfillment in that role helps in a healthy development of sense of self and independence, but ideally there is a home base they return to, there is a safety and protection in the adults to which they are healthily attached. Sometimes the parents are not the adults that can provide a healthy attachment and in those situations hopefully children can find other adults with whom they can form healthy and needed attachments. Ideally though, a child will form an attachment to a healthy parent.

Now, as I thought about how our Father in Heaven wants us to learn, wants us to come with our hearts open and willing to listen, it became obvious to me that the best way through life is to form a strong attachment to our Heavenly Parents and Jesus Christ. Too often I look to other earth bound mortals for value, reassurance, and worth when really that should come from a heavenly source. As I work more on my attachment to my Heavenly Parents and my Savior I will walk through life with more confidence, more security, more courage to face whatever is to come. A healthy attachment to the Divine will allow for more growth, strength through hardships, grace along with mistakes, an outward focus, and inward fulfillment. There are several stages to developing a healthy and strong attachment (either with our children or with the Divine) and step by step, day by day, effort by effort, we can create, repair, and restore the type of healthy attachments that will be the most beneficial.

In Galatians 5:26 it says we should “not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.” Now I don’t know about your home but in mine there is a fair amount of provoking one another, and some envying of one another. “He’s looking our my window” is a common complaint in the car. “She’s touching my cushion with her foot again” is a regular while reading together. It is taking an immense amount of work to weed this out of our home and it is challenging! I believe part of the answer is found in the verse previous (v. 25) “let us also walk in the Spirit.” In Don’t Miss This this week they talked about what it means to walk with someone. Some of you may have made walking part of your life. Maybe early in the morning with a friend, maybe alone with time to think or listen to something, maybe with your spouse, children or a parent as a way to reconnect, decompress, or to get or lend support. Even if you don’t go walking regularly I could guess that you have been on a walk with someone before. When we walk with someone one person will typically set the pace and the direction. After some time together the pace feels natural to both and the direction becomes predictable. We walk in step with each other, following each other’s lead, perhaps shadowing each other’s rhythm, not calling from ahead to have them speed up or chasing to catch up from behind. Walking may be about exercise, mental heath, or personal goals, but when we walk with someone it is also about relationship; not so much speed or even the destination, but about being together. When we walk with Christ we don’t chase Him from behind, He doesn’t sprint ahead and wait with foot-tapping for us at the corner. We can join Him, walking in step, matching His rhythm, following His lead. I think a key part in rooting out the tendency to provoke and envy others is in developing relationships with each other. Coming to know and developing a love for those we have a tendency to provoke, or for those who have a tendency to provoke us, can help bring a fair amount of peace and understanding to a challenging relationship. What would it do for challenging relationships if we put forth the effort of walking in step with them, following their lead, feeling and learning their rhythms, and spending time with them? I imagine it would soften the tendency or temptation to provoke and subdue or quiet our envying.

One other thought is that the scripture actually says “walk in the Spirit.” In the Spirit could conjure images of being encircled in the arms of, enveloped within, or encompassed about by the spirit. Can you envision the difference in your life when it is enveloped within the Spirit? What do your responses sound like in your every day interactions when you are encompassed about by the Spirit? How do you behave when you are encircled in the arms of the Spirit? I would venture to say it looks like a godly life, a Christ-like life, a life of the Spirit. And how do we walk in the Spirit? We have to practice walking with Him. It’s pretty extraordinary what a walk can accomplish.