What are you missing?

Although it is almost 3:00 am and I should be in bed asleep, many thoughts and emotions are tangled in my mind. So my hope is that not only does this blog allow me to get my thoughts out there where they are tangible and readable where I can get some sleep, my hope is that some of these thoughts would touch others lives as they have mine.

I have now attended my Personal Evaluation class twice and only have 3 more meetings before it is concluded. It is set up as a 5 week course although I wish it was a 15 week course like many of our other classes. This class is very challenging (not academically but spiritually), the objectives of the class are to allow us as "soon to be counselors" to understand and explain our strengths, our emotional healthy spirituality, our personality type, and motivational gifting. By completion of the 5 week class we should also understand the impact of that our family origin has had on our personal development, identify how we are likely to interact with others in various settings and situations. So as you can see the class is exactly like its title a Personal Evaluation. The text we are using for this course is Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero (which I highly recommend and can be bought from any Christian Bookstore). Scazzero is very open and transparent in the book and I think that is what I like about it. Just a little background, Scazzero was a senior pastor in a growing church in New York. One night Geri, Scazzero's wife, came to him and told him "the church you pastor? I quit. Your leadership isn't worth following." Geri leaving his church made him look beneath the surface of his life. Even though he was a pastor, Scazzero did what most people do, he avoided conflict in the name of Christianity; ignored his anger, sadness and fear; he used God to run from God; he died to wrong things; and he lived a life with out boundaries and limitations. The challenge in this class is to look beneath the waters into our lives not just looking at what all can see "the tip of the iceberg".

Scazerro learned the hard way that "You can't be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature".

With any diagnosis of health there are symptoms that lead to that diagnosis.

10 symptoms of the emotionally unhealthy spirituality:

1. Using God to run from God (ex. applying scripture selectively to suite ones own purpose)
2. Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear (not being honest with oneself and or others about the feelings and pains beneath the surface)
3. Dying to wrong things
4. Denying the pasts impact on the present (not considering how your family of origin and significant people/events from your past has shaped your present)
5. Dividing our lives int "secular" and "sacred" compartments (compartmentalizing God to "Christian Activities" while usually forgetting about Him while working, shopping etc.)
6. Doing for God instead of being with God (evaluating your spirituality based on how much you are doing for God)
7. Spiritualizing away conflict (missing out on true peace by smoothing over disagreement, burring tension and avoiding conflict, rather than disrupting the false peace as Jesus did)
8. Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure (not speaking freely about your weakness, failures and mistakes)
9. Living without limits ("trying to do it all" or "biting off more than you can chew")
10. Judging the spiritual journey's of others (finding yourself occupied and bothered by the faults of others)

So by the time we were to number 10 my toes hurt from being "stepped on". As we discussed these in class I could think of examples of how some how I had one of these symptoms at one time or another. One quote that has really stuck with me that we went over both times we've met is "That which is denied can not be healed". If we deny these things and say "oh no I don't have those symptoms", we can not be healed. Just as if we deny physical treatment for something how do we expect to be healed? If we continue to deny that we are "emotional infants" then we will never come to a place of being "spiritually mature".

So as this challenged me I hope that this has challenged you! The good news is there are 6 principles to living Emotionally Healthy Spiritually.

1. Look beneath the iceberg
   
2. Break the power of the past
3. Live in brokenness and vulnerability
   
4. Receive the gift of limits
   
5. Embrace grieving and loss
6. Make incarnation your model for living well

I want to end with just a few more of Scazzero's quotes.

"The combination of emotional health and contemplative spirituality addresses what I believe to be the missing piece in contemporary Christianity." "Together they unleash the Holy Spirit inside us so that we might experientially know the power of an authentic life in Christ."

And I believe that is what we all desire is an "authentic life in Christ".