Recognizing the Role of Joy and Love Bonds in our Maturity
In the book; “Living From the Heart Jesus Gave You”, Jim Wilder presents why spiritual maturity is so critical for us in order to overcome our “junk”. What lies at the foundation of spiritual maturity is actually something that every child in their first two years of life instinctually wants. That is a desire to experience joy in loving relationships. This is the most powerful force in life. Some neurologists now say that the basic human need is to be “the sparkle in someone’s eye.”
Because joy comes within the context of relationships, it is a contagious experience. Joy is experienced when someone is “happy to see me,” which makes me feel all kinds of emotions from feeling confident, secure, joyful, content, the list goes on and on. Then in return, when I’m feeling joy, my responses back to the person who is delighted to see me, fills them with the same sense of satisfaction.
God, in His wisdom and grace towards a fallen and fractured world, wants us to learn how to experience joy in all circumstances.
What if you did not get your joy foundation properly laid in the beginning?
In the past few years, neuroscience has made significant strides in researching the answer to this question. Understanding the neuro science aspects of how our brain works, we can see that God, in His infinite wisdom, created our brains with an ability to continue to grow and develop our “joy center.” While other parts of our brain capacity is not able to grow once damaged or deleted, our joy center, never loses its capacity to be grown, like a muscle can be grown when worked out. This is why we can talk about ways to develop “joy strength”.
How can I develop joy strength?
There are two thoughts here. First, we can increase our joy strength by increasing our joy capacity, which we will learn about in future sessions. Second, is learning to access the sort of joy that can only come from being in a relationship with God. We have talked about the differences between what the world offers and what resources God’s Kingdom offers for satisfaction, purpose, hope, etc. The truth of God’s grace, secured by the love and sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, gives us a supernatural, “God is happy to be with me”, promise. With this foundational joy strength properly laid, no matter the circumstances, we can return to joy.
So what stands in my way?
Remember that being in an intimate relationship with God is 100% against what the Evil one wishes to occur. So he will, at any opportunity, be “prowling” around your life waiting to “pounce” with his lies, trying to keep you from experiencing this loving attachment with God. Hoping to keep you in bondage to the lies that you believe. Maturity is often blocked and usually this comes from absences in two areas – from unfinished trauma recovery where lies were implanted, and from the lack of life-giving relationships, where joy is grown.
This is why it is critical that we understand how to identify and reveal what our lie-based thinking is and where gaps in our identity may have come from.
Maturity Indicators
Maturity is often blocked, and the blocks usually come from absences in two areas – from unfinished trauma recovery, and from the lack of life-giving relationships.
Jim Wilder, Living from Heart Jesus Gave You,
A pattern of spiritual maturity is critical in building the identity God intends for us. As we have learned, trauma A and B can block us from this maturity. Remember, trauma A is the absence of good things that we should have received at various times in our lives. The Life Model, created by the Shepherd’s House, provides insight regarding the personal tasks, that when learned at the appropriate time in our development, provide a foundation for spiritual maturity. At each stage of our development: infant, toddler, preteen, teen, young adult, adult and elderly, there are critical tasks that when we successfully learn how to do them at each of the given stages, we will gain an appropriate measure of maturity. To achieve these tasks, requires that we learn them from our family or surrounding community and churches of life-giving others. When these tasks fail, or in other words, we didn’t learn them…there are corresponding consequences that we then have to wrestle with throughout our lives.
Below is a chart showing a sampling of these maturity indicators.
From: The Life Model Maturity Indicators.
The Infant Stage: Birth Through Age 3
| Personal Tasks | Community and Family Tasks | When the Tasks Fail |
| Lives in joy: Expands capacity for joy, learns that joy is one’s normal state, and builds joy strength | Parents delight in the infant’s wonderful and unique existence | Weak identity: fear and coldness dominate bonds with others |
| Develops trust | Parents build strong, loving, bonds with the infant – bonds of unconditional love | Has difficulty bonding – which often leads to manipulative, self centered, isolated, or discontented personality |
| Learns how to return to joy from every unpleasant emotion | Provides enough safety and companionship during difficulties, so the infant can return to joy from any other emotion | Has uncontrollable emotional outbursts, excessive worry and depression. Avoids, escapes or gets stuck in certain emotions |
The Child Stage: Age 4 Through 12
| Personal Tasks | Community and Family Tasks | When the Tasks Fail |
| Asks for what is needed – can say what one thinks or feels | Teaches and allow child to appropriately articulate needs | Experiences continual frustration and disappointment because needs are not met; is often passive aggressive |
| Learns what brings personal satisfaction | Helps child to evaluate the consequences of own behaviors, and to identify what satisfies him | Is obsessed with or addicted to food, drugs, sex, money, or power, in a desperate chase to find satisfaction |
| Understands how he fits into history as well as the “big picture” of what life is about | Educates the child about the family history as well as the history of the family of God | Feels disconnected from history and is unable to protect self from family lies or dysfunctions that are passed on |
The Adult Stage: Age 13 to Birth of 1st Child
| Personal Tasks | Community and Family Tasks | When the Task Fails |
| Cares for self and others simultaneously in mutually satisfying relationships | Provides the opportunity to participate in group life | Is self centered, leaves other people dissatisfied and frustrated |
| Remains stable in difficult situations, and knows how to return self and others to joy | Affirms that the young adult will make it through difficult times | Conforms to peer pressure, and participates in negative and destructive group activities |
| Bonds with peers; develops group identity | Provides positive environment and activities where peers can bond | Is a loner, with tendencies to isolate, shows excessive self-importance |
The Parent Stage: Birth of 1st Child Until Youngest Child is an Adult
| Personal Tasks | Community and Family Tasks | When the Task Fails |
| Protects, serves, and enjoys one’s family | The community gives the opportunity for both parents to sacrificially contribute to their families | Family members are 1) at risk, 2) deprived, 3) feel worthless or unimportant |
| Is devoted to taking care of children without expecting to be taken care of in return | The community promotes devoted parenting | Children have to take care of parents, which is impossible, and often leads to 1) child abuse/neglect and/or 2) “parentified” children – which actually blocks their maturity instead of facilitating it |
| Allows and provides spiritual parents and siblings for their children | The community encourages relationships between children and extended spiritual family members | Children are vulnerable to peer pressure, to cults, to any misfortune, and are less likely to succeed in life’s goals. Parents get overwhelmed without extended family support.. |
The Elder Stage: Beginning When Youngest Child Has Become An Adult
| Personal Tasks | Community and Family Tasks | When The Tasks Fail |
| Prizes each community member, and enjoys the true self in each individual | The community provides opportunities for elders to be involved with those in all of the other maturity stages | Life-giving interactions diminish, along with life-giving interdependence, stunting the community’s growth. Fragile, at-risk people fail to heal or survive |
| Parents and the community matures | The community creates a structure to help the elders do their job, which allows people at every stage of maturity to interact properly with those in other stages, and listen to the wisdom of maturity | When elders do not lead, unqualified people do, resulting in immature interactions at every level of the community |
| Gives life to those without a family through spiritual adoption | Places a high value on being a spiritual family to those with no family | When the “familyness” are not individually taken care of, poverty, violence, crisis, crime, and mental disorders increase. |
Fear Bonds and Love Bonds
Maturing requires bonds between people. Research has shown that one of the most detrimental things that can happen to a human being is isolation. We are created for relationships with others. So developing bonds between people is the soil in which the seeds of maturity grows. Through relationships with others, we are motivated, activated and nurtured. Much of “how we see ourselves” is shaped in relationship. In the above “maturity indicators” chart, notice how “when the task fails,” it often has a great effect on our interactions with others and how we bond with them.
There are two different and incompatible types of relational bonds that exist.
A fear based bond.
A love based bond.
Fear bonds are the result of trying to avoid pain in a relationship, or any kind of negativity out of fear of “what will happen if I?” This is having relationships where you feel the only thing to say is anything to protect yourself or rather – self-preserve. Fearing that no matter what you say, you are going to be blamed, shamed, belittled, made to feel rejected or guilty?
A love bond is quite the opposite. This is formed out of desire, joy, and looking forward to being with someone. Love bonds produce safe relationships based on being able be transparent, truthful, experiencing attachment without “strings”, authentic joy and peace, mutual perseverance and kindness.
A bond of love creates freedom to be who you are, no matter the circumstances, because you feel safe, and therefore share a special closeness based on grace and mutuality.
When a love is based on fear, anxiety can rise to the surface as you get ready to be together or even as you prepare to be apart.
Considering the previous Maturity Indicators examples, you can see that when tasks fail, it happens when one wasn’t able to, for whatever reason, be taught what they needed at that time. This then can become an incubator, during our formative years, for how we end up motivating ourselves or how we act everyday.
When fearful, we threaten ourselves with what will happen if we do not get to work on time, lose weight, save money, or keep our partner from getting mad. We think about things that could go wrong. We worry, feel guilty, run from shame and blame others. We become emotionally paralyzed. We operate way under our potential.
Jim Wilder, Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You
When we fail to mature properly, our actions begin to be based on fear. If our parents were able to provide a foundation based on love bonds, you will likely be motivated and mirror the same with others. However, if you experienced more of a fear bonding experience with your parents, it will result in a “motivational system that is immature”.
Are my emotional connections with others based in fear or love?
If you find yourself in situations with others where you try to control people around you with anger, contempt, belittling, silence, rejection, or even physical violence, it is a sign that you have experienced fear bonds yourself. Or perhaps instead of recognizing and dealing with your own fear bonds, you focus your attention on helping others with their fears. This is also a sign of dysfunction.
Fear bonds involve avoiding pain.
When we spend a lot of time on negative thoughts and negative feelings, we end up feeling low. That’s because our brains have these things called mirror-neurons. We end up mirroring each other’s feelings. Thinking on what is true, honorable, right, admirable, etc. actually changes our brain chemistry and changes our bonds with other to ones of love and joy.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.”
Philippians 4:8, NIV
Fear is all about avoiding pain.
Are you bonded to certain people in your life around fear?
Start paying attention to your interactions with your relational world.
Are you bonded to Jesus in fear?
Love Bonds Versus Fear Bonds in Relationships
| LOVE BONDS | FEAR BONDS |
| Based on love and characterized by truth, closeness, intimacy, joy, peace, perseverance, and authentic giving. | Based on fear and characterized by pain, humiliation, desperation, shame, guile, and/or fear of rejection, abandonment, or other detrimental consequences. |
| Desire driven – I bond with you because I want to be with you. | Avoidance driven – I bond with you because I want to avoid negative feelings or pain. |
| Grow stronger both when we move closer and when we move away from each other – When we move closer, I get to know you better. When we move away from each other, I am still blessed by the memory of you. | Grow stronger only by moving closer or by moving further away – The closer we are, the scarier it gets, so I must avoid closeness. The further apart we are, the scarier it gets, so I need to manipulate closeness. |
| We can share both positive and negative feelings – The bond is strengthened by this truthful sharing. | We cannot share both positive and negative feelings —The bond is strengthened by (1) avoiding negative or positive feelings, or (2) by seeking only negative feelings or seeking only positive feelings. |
| Participants on both ends of the bond benefit—The bond encourages all people to act like themselves. | Participants on only one end of the bond benefit—The bond keeps people from acting like themselves. |
| Truth pervades the relationship. | Deceit and pretending pervades the relationship. |
| Grow and mature people—Equipping people to find their hearts. | Restrict and stunt growth—Keeping people from finding their hearts. |
| Govern “How do I act like myself?” | Govern “How do I solve problems?” |
Converting Fear to Love Based On Our Maturity Level
If this fear bond/love bond concept resonates with you, what follows is a list of steps and considerations that the Life Model presents to change fear-bonds to love-bonds. The goal is that your desires and identity can be softened and ultimately transformed by God to experience your identity that He designed. To make a change from fear to love you can start by simply thinking and making deliberate decisions differently where you are as an adult, and the problem can be solved.
Solutions to Convert from Fear to Love Bonds
(From Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You):
- Confidently be yourself.
- Take care of your business. Stay in relationship with
others around you who are anxious but do nothing about their part of the problem.
- Speak of mutual goals that are important during this time of threat and fear.
If this adult solution worked, then you have corrected the fear bond. This does not mean that others will not react by trying to put pressure on you to become frightened again, so you may have to make this correction several times under even more pressure and anxiety from others. - If you still feel fear or cannot imagine how to use an adult solution we must go deeper and correct some earlier problems that lead to fear bonds. First we look at the child level skills.
- Resolving fear-bonds at the child level is not just a matter of understanding and choosing differently. These solutions take longer and involve study and consultation with others.
- They require a good deal of problem solving to figure out “mine” from “yours.” We generally do not solve these problems without consultation and encouragement.
- Take care of your business. Stay in relationship with
- Define your responsibilities carefully.
- Go through the demands you feel you must meet and see which ones are logically yours and which are unreasonable.
- Find someone qualified to double-check your judgment. Now, be equally clear when you are trying to solve someone else’s problem or fear. You should now be able to speak clearly about what is yours and what is someone else’s part of the problem and solution.
- Check to see if someone else is controlling you by being upset or threatening to become upset.
- If you are being controlled return to step 2 until you can speak
calmly and clearly to them about your responsibilities and boundaries.
- If you are being controlled return to step 2 until you can speak
- Check and see if you are attempting to control others through your threats or
becoming upset.- If so return to step 2 until you can speak calmly and clearly to them about
your responsibilities and boundaries. If you still fear and cannot imagine or manage to speak clearly to others about your responsibilities and limits, then we must go deeper and correct problems and develop skills needed for the infant level. - We get here when we can’t figure things out on our own or even if we do, the fear is strong enough that we can’t talk freely and openly about who we are so our “self” continues to be hidden and lost when we are afraid.
- If so return to step 2 until you can speak calmly and clearly to them about
- Find out what I am really afraid of with help from experienced minds.
- Often what I am afraid of is not a current day reality or what it seems to me. I may think I am afraid I am not doing my job but I am really afraid someone will be angry or ridicule me. I am afraid I will not survive being ridiculed because of my early life experiences.
- I must discover who I want with me when I am afraid and what I want them to do with or for me.
- I need someone who can handle the fear without being overwhelmed and help me focus on myself instead of the threat I perceive.
- I must discover what I really want and what really matters most to me in the
current situation so that I can express my goals and values. - I must learn to speak.
- Speak up about what matters to me even while I feel afraid by having someone patiently help me find words I can mean and practice saying them in a low threat situation until I am ready to speak of my values, goals and preferences to others who are afraid or of whom I am afraid.
This process of defining and expressing our identities gets much easier as our identities mature and become solid. The farther we have grown, the easier it is to change fear bonds to love-bonds.
Getting Unstuck in Your Maturity Process
- Intentionally pursue “life-giving” relationships characterized by love bonds that will help you to be all you are created to be.
- Identify a few tasks of maturity that are difficult for you, and prayerfully ask the Lord to develop your maturity in those areas.
- Identify past wounds and corresponding core lie based beliefs that have stalled your maturity. Seek help from a trusted friend or consider prayer ministry or therapy to get you started in the healing process.
Consider the Raven 