"The following are the top ten symptoms indicating if someone is suffering from a bad case of emotionally unhealthy spirituality: 1. Using God to run from God (ex: When I do things in his name he never asked me to. When I focus on certain theological points that are more about my own fears and unresolved issues than concern for God's truth. When I apply biblical truths selectively when it suits my purposes but avoid situations that would require me to make significant life changes.) 2. Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear. 3. Dying to the wrong things (God never asks us to annihilate the self. We are not to become "non-persons" when we become Christians. The very opposite is true. God intends our deeper, truer self, which he created, to blossom freely as we follow him. God has endowed each of us with certain essential qualities that reflect and express him in a unique way. Part of the sanctification process of the Holy Spirit is to strip away the false constructs we have accumulated and enable our true selves to emerge.) 4. Denying the past's impact on the present (Sanctification does not mean we don't go back to the past... it actually demands we go back in order to break free from unhealthy and destructive patterns that prevent us from loving ourselves and others as God designed.) 5. Dividing our lives into 'Secular' and 'Sacred' Compartments (Human beings have an uncanny ability to live compartmentalized, double lives. 'Whether the issue is marriage and sexuality or money and care for the poor, evangelicals today are living scandalously unbiblical lives' - Ron Sider, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience) 6. Doing for God instead of being with God. (...work for God that is not nourished by a deep interior life with God will eventually be contaminated by other things such as ego, power, needing approval of and from others, and buying into the wrong ideas of success and the mistaken belief that we can't [afford to] fail.) 7. Spiritualizing away conflict 8. Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure (...every human being on earth, regardless of their gifts and stregths, is weak, vulnerable, and dependent on God and others.) 9. Living without limits (Why are so many Christians, along with the rest of our culture, frantic, exhausted, overloaded, and hurried... Sadly, many believe that taking care of themselves is a sin, a 'psychologizing' of the gospel taken from our self-centered culture. It is true we are called to consider others more important than ourselves... However, 'self-care is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have.') 10. Judging other people's spiritual journey (By failing to let others be themselves before God and moveat their own pace, we inevitable project onto them our own discomfort with their choice to live life differently than we do. We end up eliminating them in our minds, trying to make others like us, abondoning them altogether or falling into a 'Who cares?' indifference toward them.) Are you spiritually unhealthy?" So the book continues... |