When we find ourselves in relationships and situations that do not align with love according to the Word of God, we need to take an assessment of ourselves and figure out what and where our model and example of love comes from. We need to know what love is so that we do not fall for what it is not. The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:8 that “God is love” – this makes love a spirit because that is what God is. And those who are born of God love like He does because they worship Him in spirit and in truth. If God is our standard of love, He must therefore supersede everything and anything that is not like Him, and that is not of Him. 1 John 4:18 says that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” Love that is not founded on God’s definition of love is love that is founded on fear. Fear can mean being afraid of someone or to hold someone in an exalted position by reverencing them. Christians are commanded to hold both types of fear towards God because He is a jealous God – He is a God who is committed to Himself, His perfect standard, and what belongs to Him such as His demand for exclusive worship, His honour, His glory, His love, and His holiness – and He is a God who is able to kill not just the body, but the soul of man, that is why we are commanded to fear Him. When fear is the basis of your human relationships and interactions however, you are in effect relating to God from a place of idolatry.
There are certain relationship dynamics, particularly of the toxic kind, that breed idolatry, where one person is magnified or magnifies themselves to such an extent that it becomes almost a form of worship because the relationship is either made or broken by them: their demands, their needs, their wants, their emotions, their happiness. The enlargement of themselves seeps into the atmosphere of the relationship, pushing everyone else aside, seeking to bind the other person to themselves and to the relationship through fear. Where there is fear, there is torment – which is defined as severe physical or mental suffering. There can never be any meaningful type of connection in these kinds of dynamics. You need to be able to relate to others for relationships to be successful. Toxic dynamics are not established on a relationship but on a bond; and not the bond that is of the relational kind either, but one that is established through force – by opening the wounds and triggering the traumas of one party, making them fearful of losing the relationship, the other person, or of leaving. In effect, toxic people exalt themselves within their relationships, demanding the very fear that should be reserved for God alone – they become idols in their relationships, and the dynamic becomes idolatrous. And God, time and time again, when His people set up altars of idolatrous worship to other gods, sent His judgment.
God’s love is faithful and reliable. It is honest, loyal, constant, unchanging, and consistent. God’s love is not a repetitive cycle where it’s sweet at the beginning, a mixture in the middle, and a nightmare at the end; it is not a rollercoaster of ups and downs. It is not a struggle. If you recognise that you are stuck in a toxic relationship that does not reflect the love of God, you need to ask yourself “who said that you deserve to be loved like that?” Because it certainly wasn’t God. When we find ourselves in these dynamics it is usually because of trauma. Trauma clouds your vision. It makes you see weeds as flowers and flowers as weeds. It strips you of your defences – making you comfortable in the company of snakes, wolves, and bears; giving you knowledge of how to placate them but yet oblivious to their true character and intentions, their stings, bites, poison, and assaults. Trauma binds your spiritual, emotional, and psychological location to the place of its originality, causing you to experience life from that place of wounding, subconsciously and unconsciously leading you to seek after and settle in places, and with people that are familiar to it. Trauma makes you secure in bondage and insecure with freedom. The legacy of it is that it results in mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual sickness because it defers your hope, and “hope deferred makes the heart sick” according to Proverbs 13:12. The other aspect of it is that it can lead you towards disobedience if left unchecked. That is the truth of the Israelites in the Old Testament. We all like to throw shots at them and compare ourselves with them, saying that if God did for us what He did for them, we would have never behaved like they did; what we fail to understand though, is that the Israelites were a traumatised people group who were rescued from a toxic environment rooted in idolatry with Pharaoh who was worshipped as a god in that place. The children of Israel had a relationship to God and responded to Him from a fight-or-flight mode activated by their trauma as slaves in Egypt. What the Israelites failed to comprehend though, was that God’s dealing with them was Him trying to heal them of their trauma, but they held on too tightly to their trauma, preventing them from experiencing God, and life as He had intended for them.
When you come into the Kingdom of God, you are obligated to ensure that you and the people you choose to surround yourself with, are handling you with care, because you are the temple of the Most High God. God has chosen to make you His dwelling place. To willingly subject yourself to un-Christlike behaviour and the ungodly love of others, even of yourself, becomes an act of disobedience before Him, and a desecration of His temple. Do no attract the judgment of God by entering or staying in a relationship that triggers the jealousy of God because it violates His character, His Word, and has become an idol. Submit yourself to God and allow Him to heal you of your traumas. If you would like to know how, you can pre-order my book: Who Said That You Deserve to be Loved Like That? A Christian guide To: Healing from Trauma & Abuse, Navigating Toxic Relationships, & Establishing Boundaries for Effective Self-Care. Available as an eBook with official release on May 11.