Codependency vs Biblical Self-Denial I

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If you look up codependency on Wikipedia or in a dictionary, it refers to the relationship between a person with an addiction and another person who enables them to carry on with their addictive habits.  This is a very narrow view, and not one espoused by Melody Beattie, the author of “Co-dependent No More” and other books on the subject including her latest “The New Codependency”.

Codependent behaviour can occur in anyone  who is taking care of another person or persons, to their own neglect and detriment.  Yes, the wife who covers for her husband’s alcohol abuse by making excuses to his boss and pouring her life energy into perpetuating the lie that everything is fine…is codependent.  But it can also be the seniors’ caregiver, the mother of toddlers, or the entrepreneur whose business owns him instead of the other way around.

It doesn’t stop there though.   Anyone can be codependent, because codependent behaviour is really normal behaviour taken to extremes. “There are times when we do too much, care too much, feel too little, or overly engage.  We forget where the other person’s responsibilities begin and our responsibilities stop.  Or we get busy and have so much to do that we neglect ourselves.”  [Beattie, The New Codependency, p10] Who can’t relate to that on some level?

Sadly, many Christians believe and are taught in churches that this giving to the point of self neglect is a good and holy thing.  Are we not called to deny ourselves, take up the cross and follow Christ? Did he not give everything, holding nothing back, in his death on the cross?

Well, yes.  Of course he did.  And yes, we are to follow his example.  But which example?  Yes, we know the example of his ultimate sacrifice.  And my old sinful nature belongs on that cross every day.  But what about his daily example?  Was Jesus all day, every day suffering and neglecting himself when he walked the earth?

That’s not what the Gospels teach.  Jesus didn’t say ‘yes’ to every opportunity to minister.  He didn’t stay long term in Samaria.   He didn’t heal very many in his home town.  He didn’t heal all the sick waiting at the pool of Bethesda: only one.  Why is this?  Jesus said himself “I do only what I see the Father doing.”  Contrary to the sometimes manipulative calls for volunteers we hear at church, we aren’t supposed to say yes to everything either!  Only to those things the Father is calling us to.  There is no extra holiness granted to those who over commit to the detriment of themselves and their families.  What matters is obedience in the things to which we know we are called.

Even in the midst of his ministry, we see Jesus taking care of his own needs:  rising early to get away by himself to pray, particularly when he is distressed by the death of John.  We see him taking time apart with his closest friends, Peter  James and John to share a special connection to his Source with them, and encouraging the twelve to get out of the rat race of ministry to spend some time apart in a lonely place.  We see Jesus enjoying parties given by tax collectors and ‘sinners’, because he had something that made them want him around, which gained him the reputation of ‘ a drunkard and a glutton’ among the often fasting Pharisees.

But Jesus did talk about self-denial, even his own.  “I do not do my own will, but the will of the One who sent me.”  “I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father.” and of course in Gethsemane the plea to have the cup of suffering taken from him, followed by the pledge “yet not my will, but Yours be done.”  Jesus did have a will of his own, but he held it in subjection to the will of the Father.  In “Like Christ”, Andrew Murray writes “That man has a will other than God’s is not sin.  It is when he clings to his own will when it is seen to be contrary to the will of the Creator that sin occurs.”

This is an important point to me.  As I emerged from a codependent marriage to finally gain a sense of my own personhood, it occurred to me that I couldn’t really deny myself unless I had a self to deny!  We do have a will, a self, other than God’s.  He created us this way, not as robots incapable of being self directed.  And many times my will is not contrary to God’s.  But when it is, the call is clear that because of who I am in Christ, and because of who He is as my Father, I must deny myself and follow.

And here we come to I think the most profound difference between codependency and biblical self-denial.  Like so many things, from the outside these two can look the same: people tirelessly working for the benefit of others, giving above and beyond the call of duty, lauded as heros of humanitarianism.  Is such behaviour always codependent?  No.  The codependent person acts thus out of desperation to attain or maintain a relationship or position she believes is essential to her survival.  The grounded Christian may do the same things, but her behaviour springs from love for the Father, confidence that the Father will meet all her needs and provide the strength to carry out her calling, of which she does not exceed the bounds.

There is a difference between giving of ourselves from duty and expectation (which leaves us resentful), and giving from heartfelt generosity (which brings us joy).  There is a difference between being trapped in a miserable marriage, and loving someone through the hard times.  There is a difference between codependency and biblical self-denial.

Take care of yourself, and you will always have your best to give.

Recommended for those struggling to find this balance:  The New Codependency by Melody Beattie