Do You Always Hurt (or Are Hurt) By the One You Love? - Codependency – Purity 655

 

Do You Always Hurt (or Are Hurt) By the One You Love? - Codependency – Purity 655

Purity 655 02/15/2022  Purity 655 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a sunset sky over San Marcos, California comes to us from a friend who shared this picture back on November 1^st of 2021 on social media declaring that they had “seen it all now.” and exalting “Nature for the win!”, possibly explaining their choice of a “tiki” decoration on their palm tree.  

Relationships can be complicated and so I am choosing to look past my friend’s exalting the creation over the Creator (God gets the win!, always and forever)  and their use of what they probably considered as just a harmless Polynesian decoration to adorn what I presume to be the palm tree in their backyard, and will instead choose to just enjoy the scene for what I know it to be: another snap shot of God’s creation and a representation of man recognizing the beauty of what the Lord has provided.  

It's Tuesday again, the day after Valentine’s Day, and yesterday I was provided with a veritable smorgasbord of evidence for the love that God has for us, the love that we can have for one another, and the complexity of our relationships.   

Through social media, I saw individuals give glory to God for His love for us, couples celebrating anniversaries, spouses declaring their gratitude for their life partners, parents showing the love for their children, and amigos showing the love they had for their friends. 

With the advent of social media, we can rejoice over enduring relationships and the love we have for one another, but we can also get a glimpse into when those relationships are not so harmonious, and we can also be saddened when we see that relationships don’t work out.   I even saw some articles documenting the fact that a significant amount of break ups happen around Valentine’s Day and I was shocked to discover that someone who is near to me had a breakup a couple of weeks before the day that celebrates love.  

On the flip side as bad as break ups can be, I also saw some couples who have had a history of dysfunction in their relationships declare yet another reunion of their hearts and the reestablishment of a relationship.   As much as I pray for problems to be resolved and for people to forgive and love one another, even I am sometimes skeptical and wonder if being reunited is a good thing or not for some couples as I may doubt the individual’s capacity to forgive and not fall into the dysfunctional patterns of behavior that has been publicly documented on social media for all to see.   

I also have some single friends that seem to be in and out of relationships every few months and I feel the heartache for them as they cycle from joy to despair as new people are introduced on their social media pages only to be summarily erased as “things didn’t work out”.   

As someone who has periods of wild single living, a relatively long marriage, and a painful divorce in my life history I am unfortunately well versed in the areas of relationship difficulties and the pitfalls of codependency.   

Codependency is defined as: excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, typically one who requires support on account of an illness or addiction. 

I was an addict to many things so in my past I assumed the role of “bad guy” in my codependent relationships for the most part.  I was a selfish jerk who had a host of “issues” and unfortunately put some people through hell at times because of those issues.  

But life isn’t a western where the good guys where white and bad guys where black. The truth of codependent relationships is that both sides bring their share of problems to the party. It takes two to tango, after all right, and the passionate dance of dysfunction known as codependency has each person contribute to the performance.  

I’m not here to assign blame or point fingers today, and I am beginning to share June Hunt’s book on codependency on the blog starting today to give a Christian Counselor’s take on the subject to educate and instruct on how to overcome these problems. But I do want to share what I think is the number one issue that drives codependency and that is:  living independently of God.         

When we are blind to God’s kingdom and have no relationship with our heavenly Father, life is all about creating circumstantial happiness and creating our sense of self-worth through our feelings, accomplishments, and our relationships.  

When we base our happiness and identity on our relationship status and our feelings, we are in for a rough ride!   Things change and people change and if we are betting our self-worth and happiness even partially on another person who is imperfect we are vulnerable to being negatively affected by the circumstantial whims of a broken and changing world and the wisdom and maturity, or lack thereof, of another person. 

As easy as it may seem to judge those relationships that have addictions or “an illness” in the mix as being doomed to be codependent, I would point out that the “illness” that has the potential to cause problems in all our relationships is “sin”. 

Uh oh, here he goes… now when I say sin, I would like to point out that the word is not necessarily referring to one of the Mosaic laws being violated but can also refer to a general “missing of the mark” of living according to God’s wisdom.  

The “sin”  that contributes to all of the above relationship problems is the “sin” of seeking our happiness and identity based on the world’s wisdom and not God’s, or by our own selfish motivations rather than by God’s advice to love others as we love ourselves. 

The advice I posit for our relationships is to get right with God before we try to get right with anyone else because until we are reconciled to Him and can “love ourselves” based on who we are in Christ, we will be deceived and fall into patterns that has us trying to meet some “worldly standard for success” or that will put our own needs over and above the needs of others, both of which lead to the dysfunctional disaster of trying to create happiness amongst imperfect assumptions, people, and circumstances 

So whether you are enjoying the benefits of a long term relationship, have suffered another heartache of yet another broken relationship, are in the midst of giving “it one more try”, are looking for love in all the wrong places, or have simply taken yourself off the market because you think you are better off alone, I would encourage you to invest in the relationship that can give you peace, love, and joy regardless of the circumstances that surround you and that gives you a sense of self worth that is unshakable.    I am of course talking about establishing or fostering your relationship with the Lord.   

God know us inside and out and He desires that we not live in confusion or heartache. He loves us and can help us to see who we are according to Him and how our identity in Him holds the key to our happiness.    

When we are grounded in who we are in Christ and understand the love that the Lord has for us, we can be confident in ourselves and be wise to avoid relationship patterns that would compromise who we are as God’s children and make us subject to the opinions and judgements of people who are not God.   

God is love and when we know Him we can experience life without dysfunction and share the love we have received with those around us. So keep walking and talking with God and grow into the person that He wants you to be, a person who knows peace, love, and joy as expression of who they are in Christ.    

 

Today’s Bible verses come to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Proverbs 4:23 (NLT2)
²³  Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Today’s Bible verses tells us to guard our hearts because it determines the course of our lives.  That’s a simple way to restate it, huh?  Pretty straightforward… but what does it mean?  

Well I believe that this verse is telling us that what we choose to love will have a major impact on our lives.  Behind this verse lies the concept that we can choose what we love.  We are not just subject to our flow of emotions and are not powerless in determining what we love. 

God gave us a heart to love, but He also gave us eyes to see and a mind to think and the ability to discern what is good and evil.  

Some people and things are just unhealthy and although they can have their allure we can choose to reject them when we see and discern that they are not good for us and may be under the sway of the kingdom of darkness more than walking in the light of God’s kingdom.  

Statements like “We love who we love” are deterministic lies from the enemy. We are not trapped by our past poor decisions and forced to be in relationships with anyone.  Hear that, family, friends, lovers, anyone.  

If some person or thing is bad for you, its past or present relationship or association to you is irrelevant.  We live moving forward through life and to experience the abundant life that God offers us, we may need to make the decision to end relationships or set up boundaries to eliminate unhealthy people or things from our lives.   

We can change how we think about people and things and our thoughts will in turn change our emotions regarding them. 

So take today’s Bible verse to “heart” and realize that we need to guard our hearts above all else, to determine who and what we will love, because it will determine the course of our lives.  

If we choose to love sin, or unhealthy people or things, we will choose to suffer. 

Instead choose to love God and His ways for living that always lead to good.    

Our faith isn’t a mental construct. It’s a relationship. So love the Lord with your whole heart and adopt His wisdom to determine what you will love: light or darkness, life, or death, good or evil.  

God encourages you to love and follow Him and to do so with your whole heart. And when you make that decision, your heart will abound with joy over the course your life takes. 

 

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. 

 

Today we begin sharing from June Hunt’s Codependency: Balancing an Unbalanced Relationship. Today, we begin sharing the Introduction.     

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase June Hunt’s  books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $5.00.

Biblical Counseling Keys

Codependency

Balancing an Unbalanced Relationship

by

June Hunt

Introduction

When God gave us His Ten Commandments, He began with these words. "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). He knew that if we would make our relationship with Him our top priority, He would bless our lives, and, through our other relationships, we would be a blessing to others. The primary problem with codependency is that it violates the heart of God's first commandment. In a codependent relationship, you allow someone else to take the place that God alone should have in your heart.... You allow another person to be your "god." If you have a misplaced dependency, you will have neither peace with God nor the peace of God. But if you put the Lord first, living each day dependent on Him, you will have God's peace, even when others are not peaceful toward you. This is one reason God says to us,

"You shall have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:3)

I. Definitions

Imagine that you have been handpicked by God to impact all the people around you. You have been chosen to be the liberator throughout the land... chosen to have the respect of all the people... chosen as the highest judge over the entire nation. God has even spelled out the specifics you must do in order to protect your power and safeguard your strength. Soon, the awesome stories of your success spread like wildfire. Then... in walks Delilah!

You know you are not to reveal the secret of your strength, because God has said, "Don't tell." Yet you feel torn. You want to please God, but you also want to please Delilah, who has asked you to disclose the source of your strength. You try to resist, but the more you do, the more she cries and begs, prods and pleads. Now you find yourself in the Delilah Dilemma. As you try to take care of her feelings, you cave in to her manipulation. Finally, you confide that your strength is in your obedience to God in never, ever cutting your hair. Big mistake—a big mistake that leads to unimagined misery! Delilah tells the enemy Philistines, and they cut your hair and take you captive. However, your biggest mistake is not what you said, but what you did—you let Delilah be your "god" instead of letting God be your God. (See Judges chapters 13-16.)

Biblical Counseling Keys: Codependency: Balancing an Unbalanced Relationship.

 

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