People want to change, many times immediately. However, change is mysterious. When we know what we should do we don’t do it. And when we know we shouldn’t do something, we do it anyway? Such a dilemma that confounds our lives.
Attachments are powerful and detachments are struggles. Many of our attachments are addictions that need detachment. We struggle to change. We hold fast to what we are used to, even if it is dysfunctional and damaging. Yet, why do we become addicted—desire things that are destructive to our lives—when we know better? Why don’t we attach ourselves to those behaviors that improve our lives?
Scripture teaches us to change and the change that Scripture constantly demands is to detach ourselves from this world. Detachment removes behaviors that bind us to worldly desires, especially when it comes to bodily and monetary desires. To expose our destructive desires, God speaks, revealing our hearts are desperately corrupt, and deceitful above all. They lie to us and believing the lie, bitterness and emptiness come instead of the blessings and fulfillment. To combat our deceitful desires, Jeremiah exhorts us:
Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD. (Jer 17:7)
Detachment demands an attachment to trust in the Lord, not our hearts. Dedicated to the Lord, Moses reveals the promises if we trust:
The LORD will establish you as a holy people, as he swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD, your God, and walk in his ways. (Dt 28.9)
If we obey God we are blessed beyond our imagination; but if we disobey, we reap deadly consequences. If we do what is healthy, happy, and holy, we will be rewarded with a purposeful life here and ultimately eternal life in heaven. But if we choose earthly blessings only: wealth, power, pleasure, and honor we will reap what we sow.
Jesus in the Beatitudes preaches true irony. Health, happiness, and holiness do not come from this world, but come from using the goods of this world to reach the glory of his world.
Breaking our detachments allows our hearts to attach to God. Such is the Christian Life. When we live for God, God strengthens our attachment to Him.