Just a Thought: Codependent Relationships with God
Sometimes the God we struggle to trust is not the God of the Bible, but the picture of God we have built from the people who failed us.
One of the most interesting things about human relationships is how easily we carry experiences from one relationship into another. What we learned from our parents—especially those who represented authority, protection, discipline, and approval—can influence how we relate to spouses, pastors, employers, and other authority figures.
It can even influence how we think about God.
That does not mean God is like our earthly parents. Quite the opposite. The problem begins when we unconsciously assume that He is.
When Our Earthly Father Shapes Our View of the Heavenly Father
Jesus taught us to approach God as “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). That is a beautiful truth, but for someone whose experience with a father was painful, distant, controlling, unpredictable, or abusive, the word father may carry baggage.
If your earthly father rarely listened, you may struggle to believe your Heavenly Father listens.
You can pray while somewhere inside wondering, Is anybody really listening?
Yet Scripture says:
“The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.” — Psalm 34:15
God is not the father who ignored you.
He hears.
When God Becomes an Authoritarian in Our Minds
Others grew up believing that love was based almost entirely upon performance.
Behave correctly, and you receive approval.
Make a mistake, and affection disappears.
That can produce a distorted relationship with God in which Christianity becomes an exhausting attempt to keep Him happy.
Read enough.
Pray enough.
Attend enough.
Give enough.
Serve enough.
Be good enough.
Then maybe God will approve of me. But that is not grace.
Ephesians 2:8–9 reminds us that salvation is “by grace…through faith” and “not of works.”
Certainly, obedience matters. Holiness matters. Scripture never gives us permission to excuse sin in the name of grace. But biblical obedience is supposed to flow from a relationship with God, not from a desperate attempt to earn one.
Trying to Earn the Father's Approval
This may be one of the greatest spiritual struggles for someone with codependent tendencies.
Perhaps you spent years trying to make a parent proud.
Nothing seemed sufficient.
You accomplished something, but it could have been better.
You behaved correctly, but something else was wrong.
You desperately wanted to hear:
“I am proud of you.”
But it never came.
Then you became a Christian and unknowingly brought that same system into your relationship with God.
Now you're trying to make God finally approve of you.
The problem is that you are trying to earn something Christ has already provided.
Romans 5:1 says:
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Christian does not work for acceptance.
We serve from acceptance.
That difference changes everything.
The Love-Hate-Guilt Cycle
There is another difficult side to this.
Someone can love a parent and simultaneously carry tremendous anger toward that parent because of what happened to them.
Then comes guilt.
I'm supposed to love them. Why am I angry?
That combination of love, anger, fear, shame, and guilt can become tangled together. Eventually, those same emotions may become attached to God.
We love God—but fear Him in an unhealthy way.
We want to approach Him—but expect rejection.
We pray—but assume disappointment.
We sin—and immediately believe He wants nothing more to do with us.
So our relationship with God becomes a constant cycle:
Perform → Fail → Fear → Feel Guilty → Perform Harder.
That isn't spiritual maturity.
That is bondage wearing religious clothing.
God Is Not the Person Who Hurt You
This is where healing must begin. Your earthly father may have failed you. Your mother may have failed you. A pastor may have failed you. A church may have failed you. A spouse may have failed you. And yes, Christians may have failed you.
But God is not them.
We cannot define God's character by the behavior of broken human beings. We must allow Scripture to define God's character.
Psalm 103:13 says:
“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.”
God is not asking you to pretend the wounds never happened. Neither is He asking you to redefine sin or call evil good.
But He does want you to know Him as He actually is.
Maybe We Need to Relearn the Father
For some Christians, spiritual growth involves learning more about God.
For others, it involves unlearning things about God that were never true in the first place.
God is not waiting for you to perform perfectly before He listens.
God does not withdraw His love every time you disappoint Him.
God's mercy is not weakness.
God's grace is not permission to sin.
God's discipline is not abuse.
And God's acceptance of His children is not something that must be purchased through religious performance.
Maybe the question we need to ask is not simply:
“Do I believe in God?”
Maybe we should also ask:
“Is the God I am responding to actually the God revealed in Scripture?”
Because sometimes we discover that we have spent years reacting to an earthly father, an abusive authority figure, a controlling pastor, or an impossible standard—and calling that image God.
Jesus came to show us the Father.
And perhaps part of becoming spiritually healthy is allowing Him to correct the picture.
Just a Thought.
