Rooted and Reaching
How secure love gives us the courage to grow, explore, and become free
Watching our 3-year-old and 6-year-old granddaughters grow and change month by month—sometimes week by week—is an absolute delight and joy.
Even when that growing and changing sends the younger one, in particular, into some sort of tizzy because she isn’t getting what she wants.
It reminds me of when our three children were roughly the same ages and had their own ideas about when they wanted to cuddle with us and when they wanted to do what they wanted, no matter what anyone else might say.
I won’t name any specific children so I don’t get in trouble if they read this. 😉
On this Independence Day, 250 years after the Continental Congress adopted the radical language of the Declaration of Independence, I find myself thinking about a different kind of independence.
Not the kind that means, “I don’t need anyone.”
Not the kind that says, “I’ll do it all myself.”
Not the kind that mistakes isolation for maturity.
I’m thinking about the kind of independence that grows from secure attachment.
A loving and caring attachment figure helps answer three deep questions:
Is someone available to me?
Will my distress be relieved?
Do I have agency to affect the outcomes of my own life?
Children need those questions answered in order to grow. So do adults.
We need closeness and trust. We need comfort and care. We need the reassurance that we are not alone in our distress.
And we also need agency. We need room to explore, choose, risk, practice, stumble, recover, and become.
Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw refer to this as intimacy and independence. Todd Hall names it comfort and challenge. I often think of it as being rooted and reaching out.
A child who is securely loved can run out to explore the world and then run back into safe arms. A disciple who is securely loved in Christ can do something similar.
We abide in the Vine, and from that rooted place, we bear fruit. We are held by God’s faithful love, and from that secure place, we grow in courage, wisdom, and love.
We don’t grow by severing attachment, but by being attached to the One whose love does not manipulate, abandon, dominate, or withdraw.
Of course, human attachment is never perfect. Parents fail. Leaders fail. Systems fail. We fail each other.
And yet God’s love is not simply a larger version of human attachment. God is not a bigger parent, a better boss, or a more benevolent king.
God is the source of all love.
The One in whom we live and move and have our being.
The One who invites us to come close and then sends us out.
The One who roots us deeply so that we can reach courageously.
Maybe that is one way to think about freedom today.
Freedom is not the absence of need or being untouched by others. Freedom is not doing whatever I want.
Freedom, in Christ, is becoming secure enough in love that I can grow into the person God created me to be, and have agency to bring God’s love into the world around me.
Like a child learning to ride a bike, we need both a steady presence nearby and enough space to find our balance.
Flourishing is what happens when rooted love becomes courageous movement.
(By lashkhidzetim)
So maybe the questions for today are:
Where do you need to be more deeply rooted in God?
And where is God inviting you to reach out?
For the first three weeks of July, I’m offering a simple way to explore those questions.
I’m calling it 30 for 30: a 30-minute coaching session for $30.
It’s a chance to bring one real question, longing, decision, stuck place, or next step into a focused conversation. We might explore where God is inviting you to deeper trust, where your nervous system is asking for comfort, where your agency feels blocked, or what kind of courageous reaching-out may be emerging.
You can schedule one session or several, by clicking here.
Payment is made in advance by Zelle or Venmo.
If something in you is stirring—if you are sensing that it may be time to become both more rooted and more free—I’d be glad to be fully present with you for 30 minutes and help you listen for what God may be inviting next.