Most weekdays, our small staff meets on Zoom for prayer. 

We even have a little homespun liturgy. At one point, we pray,

To sense your invitation
To feel your embrace

I’ll admit, sometimes I get derailed at this point. It almost smacks of sentimentality, as if we’re asking, ​“Give us this day our daily Holy Ghost goosebumps.” 

Aren’t there more spiritual, more biblical things to ask God for… like joy, peace, patience in trials?

Maybe. But what if feeling God’s embrace can help cultivate the fruit of the Spirit?

The reason why this might be true has to do with attachment.

Think of a small child. She is free to explore her world to the extent she feels safely attached to her caregiver. 

Lacy Borgo noticed this at the playground when her children were young. 

“While playing, my kids would raise their heads and move to a place where they could see me and be seen. If they couldn’t catch my eye and connect with a glance, they would stop whatever they were doing and come to me. Not really to ask for anything, but to be present — not more than a moment — for a touch, a hug, a hello for connection. Then they were back to playing, the good work of being a child… Much later, I learned that this behavior was what secure attachment looked like.”

We don’t grow out of the need for secure attachment. We simply find ways to cope when it isn’t there.

There isn’t space here to get into attachment theory, and I’m no expert anyway. But I can tell you this from personal experience: When attachments with God and others are based on fear and scarcity — when we have insecure or anxious attachments — it affects everything in our life.

How freely we live and how well we love is shaped in no small way by the quality of our attachments. 

Without a secure attachment to God — without being rooted and grounded in the love of God, to use the Apostle Paul’s language — the world feels like a dangerous place. Hyper-vigilance is required because my well-being is up to me. 

How then do we become more attached to God, more rooted and grounded in God’s love?

Consume massive amounts of Christian content! That makes everyone more Christlike, right? 

I shouldn’t be sarcastic. There is value in soul-nourishing content. It’s a good starting point for life with God. That’s why we send this newsletter every week. But attachment to God isn’t built primarily through information intake. It is built through experiences with God and God’s people. 

And what might these experiences be?

It may be to enter deeply with your imagination into the 23^rd Psalm.

It may be to confess to a safe person something you’ve never confessed, and hear the healing words: In the name of Jesus, you are forgiven.

It may be to put Romans 12:1 into tangible practice by lying on the floor for 20 minutes and surrendering aloud each body part to God, from little toe to frontal lobe.

Or it may be asking, simply and honestly with your friends, ​“God, help us to feel your embrace.”