Ties that Bind

I can think I’ve broken through to freedom in a certain area of life, only for it to come round again in a different scenario or for God to bring more revelation that takes me deeper.  Does that happen to you?  It happened to me this week.

As part of my healing from the past I have needed to deal with soul ties.  A soul tie is a spiritual connection between two people that comes as a result of a close, intimate, interdependent, or emotional relationship.  The most obvious of these is when there is a sexual relationship.  The relationship causes a mingling of the two, body, soul, and spirit, as they become what the bible calls “one flesh”. (Genesis 2:24).  In marriage this is meant to happen as a godly joining of the two into one, separated only at the point of death.  As Christians, it matters greatly who we connect our body to in this way because Holy Spirit lives in us, as Paul’s question in 1 Corinthians 6:19 reminds us:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

Since my past was far from spotless, there has been a process of breaking ungodly soul ties, whether sexual or emotional; taking back spiritually what belongs to me and sending back spiritually what belongs to the other person.  A disentangling of that mingling together of the two.  It is a fact that this essentially quite matter of fact, spiritual act has had significant impact.  For example, it helped me to stop having sporadic unhelpful dreams years later, about a childhood boyfriend.  However, the issue is much wider than just past boyfriends!

Close relationships like those between family members, relationships where there is any kind of covenant, like membership of a group, including church, friendships, relationships where one person has authority over another, like at work, or relationships like counselling or mentoring and so on.  Any of these can create a spiritual bond that can be healthy or unhealthy. 

I had not really thought too deeply about the concept of covenant except in the context of committing to a marriage, or to joining my previous church.  When my marriage ended, I prayed about breaking that covenant that I had made.  When I got married, I made a public commitment that is now broken.  Those things matter to God, whatever the reasons behind the breaking of it.  Similarly, when I moved recently, it was important to be released by the church leadership and blessed to move on as it helps those ties to be rightly severed.  In this new place, there is a process of working out with God what those relationships are to look like now.  

I am revisiting the whole question of “how healthy are my relationships?”.  I have been asking God to show me which ones are unhealthy. Often, I have wanted to be the one helping others, not the one receiving, so my relationships can be characterised by an element of me helping someone else in some way.  The danger in this is that I can create relationships with an element of dependency, not good for me or them.  This forms unhealthy ties between me and that other person.  One of the things that shocked me in my processing is that I had sometimes not only put myself in a position, or allowed myself to be put in a position, that belonged to someone else, but worse than that, I had sometimes stepped into a space that should have been occupied by God in that person’s life.  Instead of pointing them to God, I had tried to become their rescuer in some way.  Instead of them turning to God, they turned to me.  Instead of me pointing them back to their real saviour, I sometimes tried to fix things for them.  How very unhealthy.  How very wrong.  How glad I am for the truth of 1 John 1:9 in this situation:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all righteousness.

God has showed me that some relationships are not meant to survive my move.  They were for the last season and that is OK.  Last year, God had me watch Henry Cloud’s YouTube video entitled “Necessary Endings” (lots of good stuff on his channel in this whole area of relationships link here).  I need God’s help with moving on from people and places.  Some friendships are not forever friendships.  I wonder how many of us are still friends with all the people who seemed to be “forever friends” (BFFs) at school. 

I have been contemplating whether my loyalties are godly or not.  This has made me look more deeply at my “covenants”.  I realised that in conversations, particularly with those that I have unhealthy relationships with, I have made promises like “I’m not going anywhere; I’ll always be there for you.” just as Ruth covenanted with Naomi in Ruth 1:16-17.

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.

I have heard people preach so positively about these verses but for me, the bit about “where you die, I will die” does not sound very healthy. What kind of vow is that to make? The previous verse sounded OK, but it feels like she kept talking after she should have stopped in the second verse. I have done that and then afterwards I ponder. Did God ask me to make that promise to them, or did I just decide to because I was trying to meet some emotional need in them, or me, and in the process, I just made a covenant with them that I had no business making?  God has been bringing to mind some of those “ungodly vows” as I seek to re-establish healthy connections with people.  How carelessly, and easily I have made rash promises to people.  I am reminded of Matthew 5:37, quoted here from the Passion Translation:

A simple “Yes” or “No” will suffice.  Anything beyond this, springs from a deceiver.

As I read this version, I realised that often I feel the need to justify my “No”.  I find it hard to just say no to people without giving them a reason because I feel obliged to justify myself.  How dare I say no!  Which brings me to the other area where I first discovered Henry Cloud … boundaries. 

If you think about land, a boundary separates one person’s property from someone else’s.  I have responsibility for and control over what is my “land” and you over yours.  Unhealthy boundaries are when we take control over or responsibility for someone else’s land, or where we make someone else responsible for my land or we give them control over it.  For example, some people make you responsible for their emotions, saying things like, “You made me angry”.  Others manipulate and control me and my land, consciously or not.  As for me, I can sometimes take responsibility for other people’s salvation, their spiritual growth, their health and well-being, and more. This responsibility is not mine to take.  It can also cause me to try to be available 24/7 for people which is just crazy. 

I can find it hard to consistently create and maintain healthy boundaries that allow me space to eat and sleep sensibly and have time for work and fun in between.  Fun is often the first thing to go because it feels frivolous and, to my “not-yet-dead” religious mindset, it feels selfish!  The first question I need to ask is “God what are you asking of me in this situation?” closely followed by, “What is my responsibility?”

In some of the relationships in the past, where there has been an element of control or manipulation, which is essentially overstepping a boundary line, that needs to be rectified, both in the natural with the person especially if the relationship is to continue but also spiritually.  Where there has been wrong loyalty, a wrong commitment made, or wrong responsibility taken, that also needs to be rectified.  Sometimes I need to break that soul tie in the spirit realm completely. Sometimes I have to ask God to heal the tie making it healthier and where I have taken wrong responsibility, I need to relinquish to God.

When I was reconsidering what healthy boundaries looked like this week, God said, “Healthy boundaries are not rigid walls”.  It is good to create space for a balance of ministry time, work, sleep and fun but my delineation of those things must not be so rigid as to be inflexible, either in terms of being available for people, or in terms of when it is time to have fun.  Flexibility is good.  Spontaneity is good!  Look at the Pharisees who were so rigid about the rules that they thought it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath.

I can say with great confidence that I am not where I was in the area of healthy relationships, but I also still have a way to go.  How about you?