Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological condition where a victim identifies and empathizes with their captor so much so that they don’t attempt to leave them. The psychological response shows up when the captive begins to identify closely with his or her captor(s), as well as with their agenda and demands. The syndrome is marked not only by a positive bond between captive and captor but also by a negative attitude on behalf of the captive toward authorities who threaten the captor-captive relationship.
So you say, “Okay, I understand this concept but what does this have to do with my spiritual life? I never gave permission to anyone to control my life unknowingly and therefore am not captive to anyone.”
Let’s step back into our beginnings on this planet. When God created man, man was one with God, God in man and man in God. Man’s life was submitted to the authority of his creator by his own will. God gave the man one instruction: to not eat of the tree of good and evil that was found in the midst of the garden.
As long as man adhered to God’s command his life would never be encumbered with troubles, trials or trauma. However, man was not aware of what was on the other side of his disobedience. God was looking for willful obedience. As we know the story goes, Adam and the woman did not obey and disregarded the command of God. Through this action, a plethora of spiritual activities went into motion. Man’s eyes were opened, his senses enlightened to see things he had not seen before. Emotions of exposure and fear overwhelmed them where they felt that they had to cover themselves and hide from God.
This was the initial sign of God’s Spirit having departed from them. Their new disposition was not a peaceful transfer of power from God to Satan but it was a hostile one in that man did not know the magnitude of what his disobedience would set in motion. With Adam having been God’s prototype in the earth, now his new disposition would set the stage for all humanity born in the earth, i.e. Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
This is how we all were born into sin. We did not get a choice in this matter, it was a spiritual transaction that brought us here and it will take a spiritual transaction to opt out of sin to Jesus Christ, but we will go into that later. Nevertheless, now every child born after Adam would be born with a sin nature. A nature devoid of God’s inherent qualities.
Satan, having lived with God as one of his former thronal agents, knew just what to do with humanity. He established his control in the earth through man and manipulated man to be independent from God. Man’s new agenda would be self-made, self-empowering, self-motivating, self-conquering and the list goes on. Growing up with this sin nature was not apparent to the naked eye making us blinded to this truth. So all of man grows up in darkness. Darkness being in obscurity, difficult to understand or comprehend; after all, we were not physically blind but spiritually blind.
Let me take an excerpt from my book “Reigniting The Kingdom of God.” It can be likened to how we as humans adjust to physical darkness with our eyes. For example, on any given day as the sun starts to go down, the light silently creeps out of a room. As the day transitions into the evening, it happens very subtly, almost undetectably, because we have an innate response in our bodies that tells our eyes to adjust to the light changes. Therefore, without making any adjustments to the lighting condition in the room we continue with our activities.
We have physically adapted to our environment so much so that when someone enters the room and says “Why is it so dark in here? How can you see?” our typical response is that we can see fine! "I don’t need anymore light and please don’t turn them on." Is the person sitting in the darkness wrong about their assessment? They are functioning, and they don’t sense any threats to their decision to not adjust the lighting. What they don’t know is that persistently being in a darkened atmosphere is putting unnecessary strain on their eyes, which in turn makes it harder for them to focus and creates other physical and mental side effects.
If this happens physically to our bodies then it is obvious the spiritual implications. I will follow up with a part 2 to this article.
References & Further Reading
