The last several week of our class has given us a lot of information on detecting unhealthiness and also outlined a bit of the goal / what health looks like in a Christ follower and just briefly on how to begin the journey. Tonight and the next several weeks, we are going to go into great detail on the ‘how to’s’.
The first thing we need to do is to plan and prepare for the journey. Pastor Peter calls these gifts – the three gifts of integrating emotional health and contemplative spirituality. We are simply going to call them gifts you need to give to yourself while preparing and walking through this journey of coming into healthy spirituality:
1. the gift of slowing down
2. the gift of anchoring in God’s love; and
3. the gift of breaking free from illusions.
1. The Gift of Slowing Down: almost everyone is busy.. too busy.. Mike spoke a couple of weeks ago about setting limits and boundaries and that is a sign of spiritual health. At this stage of the process.. we have to begin to practice some limits/ some slowing down strategies in order to get to where God wants us to be. All of us are probably too active right now to have time for the kind of reflection we need to do this… reflection that allows for an inward journey, listening to God and ourselves. We must take time to slow down and reflect. This is where journaling comes in.. take time to write, think, contemplate.
Many of us have heard the story of Mary & Martha in Luke 10:38-42
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Most of us have heard and read that story and we think immediately that Martha was being reprimanded for being busy and yet.. what she was tending to were all things that needed to be taken care of. I want to offer you a new perspective – one that I learned a long time ago and one that Pastor Peter brings out in the book. You see.. Martha’s problem went far beyond busyness – her life was uncentered and divided. I believe that if Martha sat down at Jesus’ feet like Mary did, she would still be busy and distracted inside. Her inner self is touchy, irritable, and anxious. One of the surest signs of her life being out of order was the fact that she even told Jesus what to do!! J
Mary was ‘being’ with Jesus. She had the ability to be in the moment/ to be fully present with Him. She was able to enjoy intimacy with Him – She was fully engaged and in tune with Jesus. I believe that even if she was helping Martha with the household chores/ preparations, she would not be worried or upset. Why? Because her inner self has slowed down enough to focus on Jesus and He has become the center of her life.
Now, in order for us to get to a place like Mary, we have to start by stopping! In our initial stopping and slowing down, we will create a familiarity with God’s presence, we will then learn how to be fully conscious of Him at all times because we will recognize Him and be deeply rooted in Him. Not only that, but recovery/ healing / growth takes time – make a decision to give it 100%. It takes time to grieve, feel, listen, reflect… and learn how to love well. The goal of our lives, should be to love well. Genuine fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives is marked by supernatural love working in and through us (1 Cor 13)
So.. in order to reach our goals/ which I believe are God’s goals for us – spiritual health – we have to set aside some time for it. We must set limits with His help that are related to our personalities, temperament, gift mix, physical, emotional and spiritual capacity. Therefore, your journey is going to look differently for each of you.
2. The Gift of Anchoring in God’s Love: Christianity is not about our disciplined pursuits of God… it’s about God’s relentless pursuit of us. God loves us so intensely, He died for us.. He loves us so much that when we turn back to Him after our wanderings, all of heaven breaks out in celebration (see Luke 15:7). Most of us believe this intellectually but experiencing His infinite love in our hearts, is another matter. Why?
The voices in our world, from within, and from our past seem to be much louder than God’s voice/ His truth. We all have some deeply held beliefs that are tripping us up and keeping us from fully being anchored in God’s love. Some of these negative beliefs are:
· I am a mistake
· ..a burden
· ..stupid
· ..worthless
· ..not allowed to make mistakes
· I must be approved of by certain people to feel okay
· I don’t have the right to experience joy and pleasure
· ..have the right to assert myself and say what I think and feel
· ..have a right to feel
· I am valued based on my intelligence, wealth, and what I do, not for who I am.
Any of these sound familiar? It is astounding how many Christ followers would say yes to so many of these beliefs.
As we move toward getting anchored in God’s love, and how deeply he loves us –receive the prayer from the Apostle Paul in Eph 3:18-19 (New Living Translation)
18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.When we are anchored in God’s love, we will have a more biblical self-understanding:
· I hold myself in high regard despite my imperfections and limits
· I am worthy to assert my God-given power in the world
· I am entitled to exist
· It is good that I exist
· I have my own identity from God that is distinct and unique
· I am worthy of being valued and paid attention to
· I am entitled to joy and pleasure
· I am entitled to make mistakes and not be perfect
Your assignment – take some of the above and write them out as affirmations that you carry with you for the next several seeks and leave them in places where you will run into them and read them regularly throughout the course of your day.
I must also learn that anchoring myself in God’s love is going to mean that I must be ok with Him using human love for me to receive His love. Defensive walls we have built must come down.
So how can we practice contemplative spirituality and anchor ourselves in God’s love?
Practice (go through list then go back):
· Silence
· Solitude
· Daily meditation on God’s word
· Daily Prayer
· Daily time of self-reflection
· Practice the Sabbath
Repeat and add comments…
· Daily meditation on God’s word
· Daily Prayer – both of which help us to stop daily/ regularly so we can be mindful of His presence. Mother Theresa required her missionaries of charity to spend three one-hour blocks of time each day for prayer to sustain their love for God and the dying. St. Francis of Assisi left the monasteries for the streets to proclaim Christ but had a rhythm of leaving the cities to be alone with God for days and weeks at a time.
We may not be called to be monks, but we can learn many things from them as we seek to follow Christ. Example: one of my counselees is going through a healing process and really seeking to be anchored in God’s love. She is beginning to understand and see the value in time alone away from all the routine and busyness of life. So.. this week she is going to a camp/ lodge – spending the whole week with no technology – only her Bible and workbook she has been going through with me for her healing journey. She was also intentional about picking a place that is close by where she went to high school. She has some very painful memories there and plans to visit and allow herself to feel/ grieve/ deal with the emotions and memories of those events and allow God to speak truth and healing to her. Journaling is another exercise that we could all benefit from that she will be doing as well.
· Daily time of self-reflection (Step 10) – in order to become and stay healthy, we need to be self-aware (Ps 139) If we choose to do this at the end of every day, it will also enable us to cultivate an attitude of gratitude as we reflect over the day and the blessings God has given and even the things He potentially spared us from.
· Practice the Sabbath – stopping one day a week to rest to delight in God’s creation and to take care of ourselves not only anchors me in God’s love but anchors me in the practice of ‘being’ not simply ‘doing’.
All of these help us to Stop! And enable us to become more and more aware of who God is and His inexhaustible love for us. As we practice these things regularly and do our self-reflection, we will begin to see our image of God change. Some of us have a very skewed image of who He is. We may see Him as the celestial watchmaker in the sky – He created the word and set things in motion but He doesn’t really have any direct involvement any longer. We may see Him as an angry, punishing God or we may see him as demanding and anti-human. We may even see Him as being totally passive about our lives and needs. I have mentioned this before but the research proves that much of our image of God comes from that of our parents – especially our fathers. So, if our father was not spiritually healthy and mature, more than likely, we have some issues to work through as it relates to our Heavenly Father. Scripture reveals our Heavenly Father as one who seeks our good in any and every situation. And He also seeks to mature us as His children.
Brennan Manning summarizes the results of anchoring in the love of God as this:
“It is always true to some extent that we make our images of God. It is even truer that our image of God makes us. Eventually we become like the God we image. One of the most beautiful fruits of knowing the God of Jesus is a compassionate attitude towards ourselves…This is why Scripture attaches such importance to knowing God. Healing our image of God heals our image of ourselves.”
God delights in us.. He wants us to delight in Him, know Him, trust Him, be anchored in His love!
Finally.. the third gift of integrating emotional health and contemplative spirituality is:
3. The Gift of Breaking Free from Illusions – The call to healthy spirituality is a call to a radical, counterculture life. I must:
· Break free to live in the truth – stop pretending – be authentic and let others know what is really taking place inside of me
· Break free by choosing to live the unique life God has designed for me and not someone else’s (to find out more come to the God’s GPS seminar next Saturday)
· Break free from the need to attach yourself to accomplishments, things, people’s approval to feel ok about who you are.
· Break free from generational patterns of your family and culture that negatively affect how you relate and live today
· Break free from the illusion that there is something richer, more beautiful, than the gift of loving and being loved
· Break free from the layers of your false self
· Break free from wrong perspectives on life and see your life as Christ defines success
· Break free from any belief that prevents us from seeing our lives as a vapor. We can live in the reality of eternity each day and not the shortness of this earthly life.
· Break free from selfish desires that consistently move us away from God’s will for our lives.
David, a man after God’s own heart, modeled beautifully for us the integration of emotional health and comtemplative spirituality in Ps 55:1-2, 4-5, 16-17
(New Living Translation)
Psalm 55
1 Listen to my prayer, O God.
Do not ignore my cry for help!
2 Please listen and answer me,
for I am overwhelmed by my troubles.
4 My heart pounds in my chest.Do not ignore my cry for help!
2 Please listen and answer me,
for I am overwhelmed by my troubles.
The terror of death assaults me.
5 Fear and trembling overwhelm me,
and I can’t stop shaking.
16 But I will call on God,
and the Lord will rescue me.
17 Morning, noon, and night
I cry out in my distress,
and the Lord hears my voice.
GROUP WORK - HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 6
A RADICAL ANTIDOTE
1. How will you begin to give yourself the gift of ‘slowing down’ this week? What benefits do you expect to receive from this practice?
2. Are you a Mary or a Martha currently? (Remember the proper interpretation of this text in Luke) Explain.
3. What are some of the deeply held beliefs that are tripping you up in your walk toward maturity?
Examples shared were:
I am a mistake ..a burden ..stupid ..worthless ..not allowed to make mistakes …I must be approved of by certain people to feel okay ….I don’t have the right to experience joy and pleasure...have the right to assert myself and say what I think and feel...have a right to feel…I am valued based on my intelligence, wealth, and what I do, not for who I am.
4.What does anchoring yourself in God’s love mean to you? Of the practices discussed, which are you currently doing and which are you going to be working on incorporating?
· Silence
· Solitude
· Daily meditation on God’s word
· Daily Prayer
· Daily time of self-reflection
· Practice the Sabbath
Hold one another accountable to do the assignment – write out affirmations that you carry with you for the next several seeks and leave them in places where you will run into them and read them regularly throughout the course of your day.
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