Understanding Emotional Attachment -By Joe Dauda

I routinely gift people N5k, N10k, and occasionally a whole lot more. It all depends on the situation. But if I buy a pack of bottled water, don’t you dare touch it!

Do you understand why?

A pack of bottled water is less than N1k. Why am I often so protective of my water? 

The reason is emotional attachment. I consider water so important and love drinking water to the extent that I have become emotionally attached to any water I buy. So while I may be willing to part with N2k if I see the need, whenever I stay in a hotel and buy a pack of my favorite bottled water (it’s a lot cheaper and better than what hotels normally supply) I carry that water with me when I check out and move it around either in the boot of my car or even in public transport vehicles — until I get to my destination.

Except you understand my emotional attachment to water, you may think I’m plagued with poverty mentality, or stingy, or just queer. But I’m an analyst. I have correctly analyzed my interaction with water and have come to identify it for what it is — emotional attachment. And that brings us to the topic of today’s piece.

The problem that Lot’s wife had was that she was emotionally attached to this world. When I say “this world” I believe you understand that there is no particular building that goes by that name — or particular car or jewelry. By stating that Lot’s wife had become emotionally attached to “this world” I mean she had become emotionally attached to the things of this world.

If you are a child of God seriously expecting to enjoy the eternal life available for all people through the merits of Jesus Christ, you need to guard against this. You need to guard against being emotionally attached to anything in this world — including people. 

Do you not know that your attachment to people is capable of denying you the best gift God could possibly give to man — eternal life? If you are attached to any human being in a way that causes this connection to rob God of first place in your life, you are in hot water and need to save yourself quickly before it’s too late.

Luke 14:26
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”

The story of Lot’s wife — which provides biblical evidence for the concept of emotional attachment — is one of the saddest stories in the Bible. Sodom and Gomorrah were the only cities God destroyed with the same stuff He will use in the lake of fire — also known as hell fire. That fire is referred to as eternal fire and is unquenchable. Which is why Sodom and Gomorrah were completely burnt up. No fire brigade would have been able to fight that fire. Jude 7. 

It was from this hell fire that Lot’s wife was supposed to have been rescued. And she got a free visa for this. God sent two angels as holy chaperons to lead Lot and his family out of Sodom. Lot was ready to leave, even though he too was dragging his feet. Lot’s two daughters were also ready to leave. Remember that they abandoned their husbands. This is proof that they believed the angels and were ready to forsake Sodom and all its thrills and frills. For those who think Jesus Christ is harsh for demanding that, to be His disciple, you must love him more than husband or wife or father or mother, the case of Lot’s daughters should help you understand that Jesus Christ is not harsh: He knows that the day may come when, except you abandon them, your close relatives may hinder you from inheriting the kingdom of God. For example, if Lot’s daughters had decided to love their husbands above the truth, they would have looked for some sweet excuses and would have stayed back in Sodom. And they would have been destroyed. 

The fact that Lot’s wife managed to join her family in escaping from Sodom shows that she, too, wanted to be safe from the coming destruction. We may also safely assume that she believed the divine warning issued by the two angels. 

But remember the title of this piece? Emotional attachment.

Lot’s wife was so emotionally attached to Sodom that every step she took away from that doomed city filled her heart with the pain of great lose. It would seem that, as the favored family began to go beyond a view of Sodom, Lot’s wife could not bear the pain that she would never see the gorgeous city again. Maybe she did not even think the city could be saved: but the longing in her heart was more powerful than the urgency of getting out to safety. 

So she looked back!

All the secret love of this world she had been harboring in her heart for years had damaged the love for spiritual things and now blurred her sense of reasoning in a way that would forever prove fatal. It did not make sense for Mrs Lot to risk damnation only for a last look at Sodom. But she did. And such is the power of love. Except you hate this world, you will be surprised at what you will do in the day of temptation. So guard your heart. Use the things of these world as required — for comfort and functionality; but be sure to not become emotionally attached to anything because it will only end up making you as terribly foolish as Lot’s wife was.

Which is why I decided to give away my “beloved” pack of water today after writing this piece. I just left a hotel and was already carrying my burden of bottled water around. In fact, that was what inspired this piece.

May God have mercy on all of us.

1 John 2:15
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”