THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY – Learning New Skills to Love Well
How do we know God exists? A monk replies… “no explanation or argument can achieve this, only the practice of ‘active love’. Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” Loving well should be the goal of the Christian life. It is much easier in our dreams than in practice. It requires that we grow into emotional adulthood in Christ. It requires genuine, healthy spirituality. What we typically do is practice spiritual disciplines and misapply biblical truth. Our relational skills were probably learned unconsciously in our family growing up and we have already discovered that most are not ‘healthy’ relationally/ emotionally. Most of us make a lot of assumptions in our relationships and think we know the truth. This seems so much easier than actually talking to the person(s), confronting the issue, or facing it directly. We all seem to learn skills in life to be competent in our careers and at school.. but we don’t learn how to grow into an emotionally healthy, mature adult who loves well.
The Bible is clear what we are to do. Here are a few that we can glean from the word (taken from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality) – Ask yourself:
- How can I be quick to hear and slow to speak?
- How can I be angry and not sin?
- …watch my heart above all else (since that is the place from which life flows)?
- …speak the truth in love?
- …be a peacemaker?
- …mourn?
- …not bear false witness against my neighbor?
- …get rid of all bitterness, rage and envy?
- …love like 1 Cor 13?
If we cannot walk out our beliefs/ truth in our churches and relationships - they will not be any different from the world around us.
The first step in getting this right is to identify where we are. Are we an emotional infant, child, adolescent or adult? Here are the qualities/ symptoms:
1. Emotional Infant – look for others to take care of them, have great difficulty entering into the world of others, are driven by the need for instant gratification, use others as objects to meet their needs
2. Emotional Child – content and happy as long as they receive what they want; unravel quickly from stress, disappointments and trials; interpret disagreements as personal offenses, are easily hurt and angered; complain, withdraw, manipulate, take revenge, become sarcastic whey they don’t get their way; have difficulty calmly discussing their needs and wants in a mature, loving way.
3. Emotional Adolescent – tend to often be defensive, threatened and alarmed by criticism, keep score of what they give so they can ask for something later in return, deal with conflict poorly, blame, appease, go to a third party, pout or ignore the issue, become preoccupied with themselves, have great difficulty truly listening to another person’s pain, disappointments or needs, are critical and judgmental.
4. Emotional Adults – able to ask for what they need, want or prefer – clearly, directly, honestly; recognize, manage and take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings; can when under stress, state their own beliefs and values without becoming adversarial; respect others without having to change them, give people room to make mistakes and not be perfect; appreciate people for who they are – the good, bad and ugly – not for what they give back; accurately assess their own limits, strengths, and weaknesses and are able to freely discuss them with others; are deeply in tune with their own emotional world and able to enter into the feelings, needs, and concerns of others without losing themselves; have the capacity to resolve conflict maturely and negotiate solutions that consider the perspectives of others.
Last week we learned about disciplines whereby we could begin to ‘practice the presence of God’. This week we want to focus on how to ‘practice the presence of people’.
Again, loving well is the essence of true spirituality. It will require that we experience connection with God, ourselves and other people. God invites us to practice His presence in our daily lives and at the same time, He invites us to practice the presence of people within the awareness of His presence. The two are rarely brought together but need to. Jean Vanier wrote this: ‘Love is to reveal the beauty of another person to themselves’. Jesus did that with each person He met. And Jesus calls us to do the same: Matthew 22:37-40 sums it up, love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, strength.. love your neighbor as yourself.
Our Great Problem –
Most of us still see ourselves as the center of the universe. And.. as a result, we naturally want the people around us to give up themselves and become what we want them to be. We prefer that those closest to us think, feel, and act toward the world the same way we do. If that’s the case, then what M Scott Peck says is true: ‘we are all born narcissists and we are all learning to grow out of our narcissism – and that is the heart of the spiritual journey”. Hmmmm could be some truth to that.
Types of Relationships:
I-It Relationship – In many human relationships, we lose sight of others as separate from us or we treat people as objects, as an IT. In the I-It relationship, I treat you as a means to an end. What would that look like?
- moving people around on an organizational chart at a staff meeting as if they were objects or subhuman - talk about people in authority as it they were subhuman – threatened when someone disagrees with my views – listen to my neighbor or coworker’s problems and help them with ‘work’ or chores in hope they will attend the upcoming outreach at my church.
The result of I-It relationships is frustration – they don’t fit ‘my plans’. I see things ‘right’ and if they don’t see things as I do then they are ‘wrong’. Recognizing the uniqueness and separateness of every person in the world is not ok – we want them to see everything as we do – our way is the right way and only way.
I-Thou Relationship – Though you are different from me, I respect, love and value you. In this type of relationship, 2 people are willing to connect across their differences. God fills the ‘in-between’ space. That is known as the ‘sacred space’. This type of healthy relationship, intimately reflects the I-Thou relationship humans have with God. Genuine love is released between the 2 and God’s presence is manifest. If we are genuinely practicing this type of relationship, the evidence of loving well will be our ability to deal with conflict well. We will be able to resolve conflicts maturely and negotiate solutions as we consider other people’s perspectives.
Conflict: At the heart of true peacemaking is acknowledgment that we are human beings made in the image of God. Knowing this, puts us on the path of desiring to live in the truth and not in pretense, even when that means a conflict may result. Most Christians I meet are really bad at resolving conflict and 2 reasons for this sited by Pastor Scazzero is: wrong beliefs and a lack of training/ equipping in this area.
2 Ways to deal with Conflict:
1. Ignoring Conflict (False Peacemaking) – Matthew 5:9 “9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Most people think Jesus calls us to be pacifiers and appeasers who ensure nobody gets upset. We are to keep the peace at all cost – ignoring difficult issues and problems, making sure things remain stable and serene. What would be some examples of being a false peacemaker?
The way of true peace will never come through pretending what is wrong is right! Tue peacemakers love God, others and themselves enough to disrupt false peace.
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’[a]
Unresolved conflicts are one of the greatest tensions in Christians’ lives today. Most of us if not all of us – hate it! We don’t know what to do so instead of risking any more broken relationships, we prefer to ignore the difficult issues and settle for false peace. We all must realize… we cannot build Christ’s kingdom on lies and pretense – only the truth will do. So we have to be honest and not ignore the conflicts!
Skills to be a true peacemaker: (always pray first!)
- Speaking & Listening: Speak in personal pronouns – talk about your own feelings, opinions and thoughts. Be brief – use short sentences. Correct they other person if you believe they have missed something and do not understand. Continue to speak until understanding is realized. As you listen – put your own agenda on hold. Be quiet and be intentional about active listening. Reflect their words back to them so you have clear understanding.
- Remember the Bill of Rights: Respect means I give myself and others the right to –
1. space & privacy – knock on doors before opening, don’t open mail that is not addressed to you, respect needs for quiet and space
2. be different – allow for preferences of food, movies, volume of music, how we spend our time
3. disagree – make room for each to think and see life differently
4. be heard – listen to each others' desires, opinions, thoughts and feelings
5. be taken seriously – listening and being present to one another
6. be given the benefit of the doubt – check out assumptions rather than judging one another when misunderstandings arise
7. be told the truth – when asking for information being able to trust it is truthful
8. be consulted – checking and asking when decisions will affect others/me/ them
9. be imperfect & make mistakes – leave ‘room’ for breaking things, forgetting, letting each other down unintentionally, failing when we have honestly tried
10. courteous & honorable treatment – use words that don’t hurt, ask before using others things, treat each other as: I-Thous
11. be respected – taking one another’s feelings into account
- Check out assumptions: The 9th Commandment says “you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” Exodus 20:16. Every time I make an assumption about someone without confirming it, I believe a lie about this person in my head. This assumption is a misrepresentation of reality. Because I have not checked it out with the other person, it is very possible I believe something untrue. It is also likely I will pass that false assumption around to others.
It is also important to remember that if I do go to the person about my assumption and they tell me I am wrong.. I must choose to believe that what they are telling me is accurate and take it at face value. To walk away from that encounter still believing what I came into the discussion with- is judging. There is simply no way around it – to assume is to judge (see Matthew 7:1-5 on judgment). And if this continues in the relationship it will eventually have a very negative impact.
- Check out expectations – What is the difference between a realistic and unrealistic expectations? Give me some examples of expectations you may have had in the past in your relationships – family, spouse, friends, church. Important note: expectations are only valid when they have been mutually agreed upon.
- Allergies & Triggers: “Healing the Ledger” – In inner healing prayer we simply label them triggers. It is a situation that causes feelings to rise up from the past – we are ‘stirred up’ emotionally to a level that the situation does not warrant. An example: Teresa sees her husband watching TV instead of parenting the children with her and she gets very angry. She attacks and belittles him because he unconsciously reminds her of her father who left her home when she was 7 years old, leaving her and her mom to fend for themselves. It is important that we pay very close attention to triggers. They can lead us to our false beliefs in memories that need to be exposed so we can be healed and receive truth.
An exercise some use for relational ‘allergies’/ triggers is to ask yourself the following (called the Healing Ledger):
- when this happens what I tell myself or think is…
- when… I feel…
- when.., what I think and feel about myself for having these feelings is..
- when… the behavior you see from me is..
- what this relates to in my history is…
- when.. you remind me of…
- the price we are paying for this in our relationship is…
- the words from the past that I needed, words I wish had been said to me, are…
If we take the time to pay attention to triggers and work them through, we will realize how much we are still living in the past and how we project it into the present. Once we have some realization, we can begin to make different choices – choices that are more loving, emotionally adult responses rather than reactions. We can begin to love well.
THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY – Learning New Skills to Love Well – GROUP WORK
1. Let’s be candid – can you relate more with the
Emotional Infant, Emotional Child, Emotional Adolescent or
Emotional Adult?
2. Have you been in a relationship that was like the ‘I-It’ Relationship? What was that like? And the ‘I-Thou’ – experienced it?
3. Conflict – discuss the ways people deal with it and how you are going to perhaps change how you deal with it in the future.
4. Discuss the Bill of Rights
5. Discuss your experiences with one of these in a relationship you are in or have had – pick one: assumptions, expectations or triggers.
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