ZONDERVAN

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Copyright 2006 by Peter Scazzero
This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook.
Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scazzero, Peter, 1956 .
Emotionally healthy spirituality : unleash a revolution in your life in Christ /
Peter Scazzero.
p. cm.
Summary: Help to experience a faith charged with authenticity, contemplation,
and a hunger for God Provided by the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-310-34246-5
1. Spirituality. 2. Spiritual formation. 3.Religious addiction. I.Title.
BV4501.3.S29 2006
248.4 dc22
2006013039
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New
International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright 1993, 1994,
1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
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permission of the publisher.
Cover photo: Shutterstock / leonello calvetti
Author photos: Orlando Suazo
Interior illustration: 123RF / Ion Popa
Interior design: Beth Shagene
First Printing June 2014 / Printed in the United States of America

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Contents
AC K NOWL E D GM E N TS

IN T R O D UC TI ON

P A RT ONE:
The Problem of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality

C H AP T E R 1

Recognizing Tip-of-the-Iceberg Spirituality

Something Is Desperately Wrong
23

C H AP T E R 2

The Top Ten Symptoms of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality

Diagnosing the Problem
C H AP T E R 3

39

The Radical Antidote: Emotional Health and

Contemplative Spirituality
Bringing Transformation to the Deep Places

P A RT TWO:
The Pathway to Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

63

C H AP T E R 4

65

Know Yourself That You May Know God

Becoming Your Authentic Self

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C H AP T E R 5

93

Going Back in Order to Go Forward

Breaking the Power of the Past
C H AP T E R 6

117

Journey Through the Wall

Letting Go of Power and Control
C H AP T E R 7

135

Enlarge Your Soul Through Grief and Loss

Surrendering to Your Limits
C H AP T E R 8

153

Discover the Rhythms of the Daily Office and Sabbath

Stopping to Breathe the Air of Eternity
C H AP T E R 9

175

Grow into an Emotionally Mature Adult

Learning New Skills to Love Well
C H AP T E R 10

195

Go the Next Step to Develop a Rule of Life

Loving Christ Above All Else
AP P ENDIX A : Th e P ra yer o f E x a m en

211

AP P ENDIX B : E x c erp t f ro m
Emo tio n a l l y H ea l t h y S p i ri t u a l i t y D ay by Day

213

NO T ES

221

AB O U T T HE A UTH OR

228

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Introduction

When Emotionally Healthy Spirituality was first published, I never

imagined that the message contained in these pages would resonate so
deeply with churches across all denominational and theological lines
from Africa to Asia, to Europe, to South and Central America, to the
Mideast, to Australia and New Zealand, and to North America.
This book has since grown into what is now known as The EHS Course,
a workbook, DVD, and eight-week daily office book called Emotionally
Healthy Spirituality Day by Day, developed to serve as companions to this
material. (You can find a sample of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by
Day in the back of this book.) The course has become the foundation for
countless churches in their commitment to a deep, beneath-the-surface
spiritual formation model out of which they accomplish their mission.1
I am often asked why I think the content of the book has spread
so rapidly around the world. I believe it is because the content has
been worked out in a local church, very slowly, over a long period of
time. We have been absorbing the principles found in this book for
more than nineteen years. Fifteen hundred people from seventy-three
nations stream through our doors each week. This provides a very
unique opportunity and context for working this material into a community that represents the global church. Moreover, the content you
encounter in the different chapters has been pondered over, preached
on, prayed for, applied to, and lived out by many different members
of our church for all these years. We have been absorbing it, little by
little, for our own journey with Christ.
This book is distinct in three very important ways from my first
book, The Emotionally Healthy Church. First, this book is written not
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Introduction

just to leaders and pastors but to everyone. Second, for those who read
the first book, you will notice new principles have been added; others
have been reworked and sharpened. The intervening years provided a
rich time for reflection and deepening of these ideas. Finally, I write
with a burning passion to make the ancient treasures of the church
accessible. The contemplative tradition has brought fullness, richness,
and a greater depth to our disciple-making and spiritual formation at
New Life Fellowship Church.
The integration of emotionally healthy spirituality has led our leadership, and church members, to frontiers of life in the Holy Spirit that we
could not have imagined. You can expect the same as you embark on this
journey.
Consider my own transition as a good example. I served as the
senior pastor at New Life Fellowship for twenty-six years. In October
2013, after a four-and-a-half-year succession process,2 my role shifted,
and I now serve on staff as a teaching pastor/pastor-at-large. This
change has brought a wonderful expansion and deepening for New Life
and emotionally healthy spirituality.
Now it is your turn.
This book is meant to transform your life, not merely provide information.
It is an invitation to a deeper and wider relationship with Jesus Christ,
requiring you to journey into the unknown, much like Abraham did
when he left his comfortable home in Ur. The combination of emotional
health and contemplative spiritualitythe heart of the message found on
these pageswill unleash a revolution into the deep places of your life.
This revolution, in turn, will transform all your relationships.
So please read this book prayerfully . . . thoughtfully . . . slowly.
Stop to absorb the glimpses of God and yourself that the Holy Spirit
gives you along the way. Write down how God speaks to you. When
I read an edifying book where God is speaking to me, I write inside
the back cover a few sentences about each insight along with the page
number. This way I can go back later and easily review what God said
to me. You may want to write in the margins of this book or keep a
journal as you read.
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Introduction

Pray the prayers, slowly, at the end of each chapter. Dont hurry.
Each chapter could have been expanded easily to be its own book. There
is a lot of material to chew on here.
Most importantly, savor and cherish the Lord Jesus Christ as you
meet him in these pages. You want to grow in your experience of
Jesus, not merely add to your head knowledge about him.
The book is divided up simply. The first section is titled Emotionally
Unhealthy Spirituality. These chapters are intended to help you recognize the nature of what an emotionally unhealthy spirituality looks like. It
is important you clearly see the nature and scope of the problem before
reading about the radical and far-reaching antidote.
Chapter 3 provides the hinge upon which the rest of the book
hangs, explaining why both emotional health and contemplative spirituality are indispensable to bringing transformation in Christ to the
deep places of your life. You may want to return to reread this chapter
when you finish the book. The second section of the book, chapters 4
through 10, addresses the specific pathways essential to developing an
emotionally healthy spirituality.
John of the Cross, in the introduction of his book The Living Flame
of Love, noted that everything he wrote was as far from the reality
as is a painting from the living object represented.3 Nonetheless, he
ventured to write what he did know. In the same way this book cannot capture the incomprehensible and inexhaustible God we seek to
know and to love. We will spend eternity getting to know him better.
Remember as you read that these words also are like a painting, directing you to a richer, more authentic encounter with the living God in
Christ. The real success of this book will be measured by the positive
changes in your relationships with Jesus, others, and yourself.
Since a lack of emotional health early in my ministry almost caused
me to crash, I am thankful to God for his mercy. This mercy enabled
me not only to survive but to enjoy a richness of the Christian life that
I never imagined. If you are hungry for God to transform you as well
as those around you, I invite you to turn the page and begin reading.

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PART O N E

The Problem of
Emotionally Unhealthy
Spirituality

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CH A P T E R 1

Recognizing
Tip-of-the-Iceberg Spirituality
Something Is Desperately Wrong

Christian spirituality, without an integration of emotional health, can

be deadlyto yourself, your relationship with God, and the people
around you. I know. Having lived half my adult life this way, I have
more personal illustrations than I care to recount.
The following is one I wish I could forget.
Faith and the Pool
I met John and Susan while speaking at another church. They were
excited and enthusiastic about visiting New Life Fellowship Church in
Queens where I pastor. On a hot, humid July Sunday, they made the
long, arduous drive from Connecticut, with all the predictable traffic,
to sit through our three services. Between the second and third service
John pulled me aside to let me know they hoped to get some time to
talk with Geri and me.
I was exhausted. But my greater concern was what their pastor, a
friend of mine, would think. What would they say to him if I simply
sent them home? What might they say about me?
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So I lied.
Sure, I would love to have you for a late-afternoon lunch. Im
sure Geri would too!
Geri, in her desire to be a good pastors wife, agreed to the lunch
when I called, even though she, too, would have preferred to say no.
John, Susan, and I arrived home about three oclock in the afternoon.
Within a few minutes, the four of us sat down to eat.
Then John began to talk . . . and talk . . . and talk. . . . Susan said
nothing.
Geri and I would occasionally glance at each other. We felt we had
to give him time. But how much?
John continued to talk . . . and talk . . . and talk. . . .
I couldnt interrupt him. He was sharing with such intensity about
God, his life, his new opportunities at work. Oh God, I want to be loving
and kind, but how much is enough? I wondered to myself as I pretended
to listen. I was angry. Then I felt guilty about my anger. I wanted John
and Susan to think of Geri and me as hospitable and gracious. Why
didnt he give his wife a chance to say something? Or us?
Finally, Susan took a bathroom break. John excused himself to
make a quick phone call. Geri spoke up once we were alone.
Pete, I cant believe you did this! she mumbled in an annoyed
voice. I havent seen you. The kids havent seen you.
I put my head down and slumped my shoulders, hoping my humility before her would evoke mercy.
It didnt.
Susan returned from the bathroom and John continued talking. I
hated sitting at that kitchen table.
I hope Im not talking too much, John said unsuspectingly.
No, of course not. I continued to lie on our behalf. I assured him,
Its great having you here.
Geri was silent next to me. I did not want to look over.
After another hour, Geri blurted out during a rare pause, I havent
heard from Faith in a while. Faith was our three-year-old daughter.
John continued talking as if Geri hadnt said a word. Geri and I
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Recognizing Tip-of-the-Iceberg Spirituality

exchanged glances again and continued pretending to listen, occasionally stretching our necks to look outside the room.
Oh, Im sure everything is all right, I convinced myself.
Geri, however, began to look very upset. Her face revealed tension, worry, and impatience. I could tell her mind was racing through
options of where Faith might be.
The house was way too quiet.
John continued talking.
Finally, Geri excused herself with what I could tell was an annoyed
tone: I have to go and check on our daughter.
She darted down to the basement. No Faith. The bedrooms. No
Faith. The living and dining rooms. No Faith.
Frantically, she ran back into the kitchen. Pete! Oh my God, I
cant find her. Shes not here!
Horror gripped us both as our eyes locked for a nanosecond. We
were both pondering the unthinkable: the pool!
Despite the fact that we lived in a two-family, semi-attached house
with little space, we did have a small three-foot-high pool in our backyard for relief from the hot New York City summers. We ran to the
backyard . . . and saw our worst fears realized.
There stood Faith in the middle of the pool with her back to us
our three-year-old daughter, naked, barely standing on tiptoes with
water up to her chin, almost in her mouth.
At that moment I felt us age five years.
Faith. Dont move! Geri yelled as we ran to pull her out of the pool.
Somehow Faith had let herself up and down the ladder into the
water without slipping. And she had kept herself standing on her tiptoes in the pool for who knows how long!
If she had faltered, Geri and I would have been burying our daughter.
Geri and I were badly shakenfor days. I shudder even today as
I write these words.
The sad truth about this incident is that nothing changed inside us.
That would take five more years, a lot more pain, and a few more close
calls.
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Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

How could I, along with Geri, have been so negligent? I look back
in embarrassment at how untruthful and immature I acted with John
and Susan, with God, with myself! John wasnt the problem; I was.
Externally I had appeared kind, gracious, and patient, when inwardly I
was nothing like that. I so wanted to present a polished image as a good
Christian that I cut myself off from what was going on within myself.
Unconsciously I had been thinking: I hope I am a good-enough Christian.
Will this couple like us? Will they think we are okay? Will John give a good
report of his visit to my pastor friend?
Pretending was safer than honesty and vulnerability.
The reality was that my discipleship and spirituality had not
touched a number of deep internal wounds and sin patternsespecially
those ugly ones that emerged behind the closed doors of our home
during trials, disagreements, conflicts, and setbacks.
I was stuck at an immature level of spiritual and emotional development. And my then-present way of living the Christian life was not
transforming the deep places in my life.
And because of that, Faith almost died. Something was dreadfully
wrong with my spiritualitybut what?
Church Leavers
Researchers have been charting the departing dust of those known as
church leavers1an increasingly large group that has been gathering numbers in recent years. Some of these leavers are believers who
no longer attend church. These men and women made a genuine
commitment to Christ but came to realize, slowly and painfully, that
the spirituality available in church had not really delivered any deep,
Christ-transforming life changeeither in themselves or others.
What went wrong? They were sincere followers of Jesus Christ,
but they struggled as much as anyone else with their marriages,
divorces, friendships, parenting, singleness, sexuality, addictions,
insecurities, drive for approval, and feelings of failure and depression
at work, church, and home. They saw the same patterns of emotional
conflict inside the church as outside. What was wrong with the church?
Other church leavers include those who remained in the church
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Recognizing Tip-of-the-Iceberg Spirituality

but simply became inactive. After many years of frustration and disappointment, realizing that the black-and-white presentations of the life
of faith did not fit with their life experience, they quitat least internally. For the sake of their children, or perhaps for lack of an alternative, they have remained in the church, but passively. They cant quite
put their finger on the problem, but they know something is not right.
Something is missing. A deep unease in their soul gnaws at them, but
they dont know what to do about it.
A third group, sadly, chose to jettison their faith completely. They
grew tired of feeling stuck and trapped in their spiritual journey. And
they grew weary of Christians around them who, regardless of their
knowledge of God, church involvement, and zeal, were angry, compulsive, highly opinionated, defensive, proud, and too busy to love the
Jesus they professed. Being a Christian seemed more trouble than it
was worth. Starbucks and the New York Times were better companions
for Sunday mornings.
There was a time in my life when I wanted more than anything else
to be one of those church leavers. The agonizing pain of a major crisis
had me writhing in anger and shameme, the guy who had tried so
hard to be a committed and loving Christian, who was so sincere about
serving God and his kingdom. How had all my best efforts landed me
in such a mess?
It wasnt until the pain exposed how much was hiding under my
surface of being a good Christian that it hit me: whole layers of
my emotional life had lain buried, untouched by Gods transforming
power. I had been too busy for morbid introspection, too consumed
with building Gods work to spend time digging around in my subconscious. Yet now the pain was forcing me to face how superficially Jesus
had penetrated my inner person, even though I had been a Christian
for twenty years.
That is when I discovered the radical truth that changed my life,
my marriage, my ministry, and eventually the church we were privileged to serve. It was a simple truth, but somehow Id missed itand,
strangely, apparently so had the vast majority of the evangelical movement Id been part of. This simple but profound reality, I believe, has
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the power to bring revolutionary change to many of those who are

ready to throw in the towel on Christian faith: emotional health and
spiritual maturity are inseparable.
Growing Up Emotionally Undeveloped
Very, very few people emerge out of their families of origin emotionally whole or mature. In my early years of ministry, I believed the
power of Christ could break any curse, so I barely gave any thought
to how the home Id left long ago might still be shaping me. After
all, didnt Paul teach in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that when you become a
Christian, old things pass away and all things become new? But crisis
taught me I had to go back and understand what those old things were
in order for them to begin passing away.
My Italian-American family, like all families, was cracked and broken. My parents were children of immigrants and sacrificed themselves
for their four children to enjoy the American dream. My dad, a baker
by trade, worked endless hours, first in a New York City Italian pastry
shop owned by my grandfather and later for a large baking distributor.
His one overriding goal was for his children to study, graduate from
college, and make something of their lives.
My mom struggled with clinical depression and an emotionally
unavailable husband. Raised under an abusive father, she suffocated
under the weight of raising her four children alone. Her married life,
like her childhood, was marked by sadness and loneliness.
My siblings and I emerged out of that environment scarred. We
were emotionally underdeveloped and starved for affection and attention. We each left home for college, trying unsuccessfully not to look
back.
From the outside our home, like so many others, appeared okay.
It seemed better, at least, than most of my friends situations. The
house of cards, however, came tumbling down when I was sixteen. My
older brother broke an invisible rule of our family by disobeying my
father and quitting college. Even worse, he announced that Reverend
and Mrs. Moon, founders of the Unification Church, were the true
parents of humankind. For the next ten years he was declared dead
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Recognizing Tip-of-the-Iceberg Spirituality

and forbidden to return home. My parents were ashamed and crushed.

They drew back from extended family and friends. The pressure and
stress of his dramatic leaving exposed the large craters and holes in our
family functioning. We splintered further apart.
It would take us almost two decades to begin recovering.
What is perhaps most tragic is that my dads spirituality and loyal
involvement in his church (he was the one member of our family
with any spark of genuine faith) had little impact on his marriage and
parenting. The way he functioned as a father, husband, and employee
reflected his culture and family of origin rather than the new family of
Jesus.
My family is undoubtedly different from yours. But one thing Ive
learned after more than twenty years of working closely with families
is this: your family, like mine, is also marked by the consequences of
the disobedience of our first parents as described in Genesis 3. Shame,
secrets, lies, betrayals, relationship breakdowns, disappointments, and
unresolved longings for unconditional love lie beneath the veneer of
even the most respectable families.
Coming to Faith in Christ
Disillusioned and unsure of Gods existence, by the age of thirteen I
had left the church, convinced it was irrelevant to real life. It was
through a Christian concert in a small church and a Bible study on
our university campus that, by Gods grace, I became a Christian. I
was nineteen. The enormousness of the love of God in Christ overwhelmed me. I immediately began a passionate quest to know this
living Jesus who had revealed himself to me.
For the next seventeen years, I plunged headfirst into my newfound evangelical/charismatic tradition, absorbing every drop of discipleship and spirituality made available. I prayed and read Scripture. I
consumed Christian books. I participated in small groups and attended
church regularly. I learned about spiritual disciplines. I served eagerly
with my gifts. I gave money away freely. I shared my faith with anyone
who would listen.
Following college graduation, I taught high school English for
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Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

one year and then went to work for three years as a staff person with
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a Christian ministry serving college
students. Eventually this led me to Princeton and Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminaries, one year in Costa Rica to learn Spanish, and
the planting of a multiethnic church in Queens, New York.
For those first seventeen years as a devoted follower of Christ,
however, the emotional aspects or areas of my humanity remained
largely untouched. They were rarely talked about or touched on in
Sunday school classes, small groups, or church settings. In fact, the
phrase emotional aspects or areas of my humanity seemed to belong
in a professional counselors vocabulary, not the church.
Trying Different Approaches to Discipleship
Just as my leadership ministry seemed to be reaching full swing, Geri,
my wife, slowly began to protest that something was desperately
wrongwrong with me and wrong with the church. I knew she might
be right so I kept trying to implement different discipleship emphases
that, to a certain degree, helped me. My conversation with myself
went something like this:
More Bible study, Pete. That will change people. Their minds
will be renewed. Changed lives will follow.
No. It is body life. Get everyone in deeper levels of community,
in small groups. That will do it!
Pete, remember, deep change requires the power of the Spirit.
That can only come through prayer. Spend more time in prayer yourself and schedule more prayer meetings at New Life. God doesnt
move unless we pray.
No, these are spiritual warfare issues. The reason people arent
really changing is you are not confronting the demonic powers in and
around them. Apply Scripture and pray in Jesus authority for people
to be set free from the evil one.
Worship. Thats it. If people will only soak in the presence of
God in worship, that will work.
Remember Christs words from Matthew 25:40. We meet Christ
when we give freely to the least of these brothers of mine, those sick,
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Recognizing Tip-of-the-Iceberg Spirituality

unknown, in prison. Get them involved in serving among the poor;

they will change.
No, Pete, you need people who hear God in an exceptional way
and have prophetic insight. They will finally break the unseen chains
around people.
Enough, Pete. People dont really understand the grace of God
in the gospel. Our standing before God is based on Jesus record and
performance, not our own. It is his righteousness, not ours! Pound it
into their heads every day, as Luther said, and theyll change!
There is biblical truth in each of these points. I believe all of them
have a place in our spiritual journey and development. You, no doubt,
have experienced God and his presence through one or more of these
in your walk with Christ.
The problem, however, is that inevitably you find, as I did, something is still missing. In fact, the spirituality of most current discipleship
models often only adds an additional protective layer against people
growing up emotionally. Because people are having real, and helpful,
spiritual experiences in certain areas of their livessuch as worship,
prayer, Bible studies, and fellowshipthey mistakenly believe they are
doing fine, even if their relational life and interior world is not in order.
This apparent progress then provides a spiritual reason for not doing the
hard work of maturing.
They are deceived.
I know. I lived that way for almost seventeen years as a Christian.
Because of the spiritual growth in certain areas of my life and in those
around me, I ignored the reality that signs of emotional immaturity
were everywhere in and around me.
Most of us, in our more honest moments, will admit there are
deep layers beneath our day-to-day awareness. As the following illustration shows, only about 10 percent of an iceberg is visible to the eye.
This 10 percent represents the visible changes we make that others can
see. We are nicer people, more respectful. We attend church and participate regularly. We clean up our lives somewhatfrom alcohol
and drugs to foul language to illicit behavior and beyond. We begin to
pray and share Christ with others.
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But the roots of who we are continue unaffected and unmoved.

Contemporary spiritual models address some of that 90 percent
below the surface. The problem is that a large portion (see the dotted
line) remains untouched by Jesus Christ until there is a serious engagement with what I call emotionally healthy spirituality.
Getting My Attention Through Pain
Three things finally dragged me, kicking and screaming, to open up to
the notion of emotionally healthy spirituality.
First, I was not experiencing the joy or contentment Scripture
promises us in Christ. I was unhappy, frustrated, overworked, and
harried. God had brought me into the Christian life with the offer, My
yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:30), an invitation to
a free and abundant life. But I wasnt feeling it.
A yoke, in ancient Palestine, was made of wood, handmade to fit
perfectly to the neck and shoulders of oxen and prevent chafing or
cutting. In the same way, Jesus assurance of a light, easy yoke can
be translated as follows: I have crafted a life for you, a yoke for you
to wear that perfectly fits who you are. It is light and easy, I promise.
The reality, however, is that after many years as an active Christian,
I felt exhausted and in need of a break. My life was lived more out of
reaction to what other people did or might do or what they thought or
might think about me. I knew in my head we were to live to please God.
Living like that was another matter. Jesus yoke felt burdensome.
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Second, I was angry, bitter, and depressed. For five years I had
attempted to do the work of two or three people. We had two services in English in the morning and one in the afternoon in Spanish. I
preached at all of them. When my associate in our afternoon Spanish
congregation left the church with two hundred of the two hundred
and fifty members to start his own church, I found myself hating him.
I tried, without success, to forgive him.
I experienced the growing tension of a double lifepreaching love
and forgiveness on Sundays and cursing alone in my car on Mondays.
The gap between my beliefs and my experience now revealed itself
with terrifying clarity.
Third, Geri was lonely, tired of functioning as a single mom with
our four daughters. She wanted more from our marriage and grew
frustrated enough to finally confront me. She had finally come to a
place where she would not accept my excuses, delays, or avoidant
behavior. She had nothing else to lose.
Late one evening, as I was sitting on our bed reading, she entered
the room and calmly informed me: Pete, Id be happier single than
married to you. I am getting off this roller coaster. I love you but
refuse to live this way anymore. I have waited. . . . I have tried talking
to you. You arent listening. I cant change you. That is up to you. But
I am getting on with my life.
She was resolute: Oh, yes, by the way, the church you pastor? I
quit. Your leadership isnt worth following.
For a brief moment, I understood why people murder those they
love. She had exposed my nakedness. A part of me wanted to strangle
her. Mostly I felt deeply ashamed. It was almost too much for my weak
ego to bear.
Nonetheless, this was probably the most loving thing Geri has
done for me in our entire marriage. While she could not articulate it
yet at that point, she realized something vital: emotional health and
spiritual maturity are inseparable. It is not possible to be spiritually
mature while remaining emotionally immature.
While I sincerely loved Jesus Christ and believed many truths
about him, I was an emotional infant unwilling to look at my immaturity.
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Geris leaving the church pushed me over the brink to look beneath
the surface of my iceberg to depths that were, until this time, too frightening to consider. Pain has an amazing ability to open us to new truth
and to get us moving. I finally acknowledged the painful truth that huge
areas of my life (or iceberg, if you prefer) remained untouched by Jesus
Christ. My biblical knowledge, leadership position, seminary training,
experience, and skills had not changed that embarrassing reality.
I was engaged in what I now characterize as emotionally unhealthy
spirituality. I was the senior pastor of a church, but I longed to escape
and join the ranks of church leavers.
Respecting Your Full Humanity
God made us as whole people, in his image (Genesis 1:27). That
image includes physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and social
dimensions. Take a look at the following illustration:

Ignoring any aspect of who we are as men and women made in

Gods image always results in destructive consequencesin our relationship with God, with others, and with ourselves. If you meet someone, for example, who is mentally challenged or physically disabled,
his or her lack of mental or physical development is readily apparent.
An autistic child in a crowded playground standing alone for hours
without interacting with other children stands out.
Emotional underdevelopment, however, is not so obvious when
we first meet people. Over time, as we become involved with them,
that reality becomes readily apparent.
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I had ignored the emotional component in my seeking of God for

seventeen years. The spiritual-discipleship approaches of the churches
and ministries that had shaped me did not have the language, theology,
or training to help me in this area. It didnt matter how many books I
read or seminars I attended in the other areasphysical, social, intellectual, spiritual. It didnt matter how many years passed, whether
seventeen or another thirty. I would remain an emotional infant until
this was exposed and transformed through Jesus Christ. The spiritual
foundation upon which I had built my life (and had taught others) was
cracked. There was no hiding it from those closest to me.
I had been taught that the way to approach life was through fact,
faith, and feelings, in that order. As a result, anger, for example, was
simply not important to my walk with God. In fact, it was dangerous and needed to be suppressed. Most people are either stuffers or
inflictors of their anger. Some are both, stuffing it until they finally
explode onto others. I was a classic stuffer, asking God to take away
my bad feelings and make me like Christ.
My failure to pay attention to God and to what was going on inside
me caused me to miss many gifts. He was lovingly coming and speaking to me, seeking to get me to change. I just wasnt listening. I never
expected God to meet me through feelings such as sadness, depression,
and anger.
When I finally discovered the link between emotional and spiritual
health, a Copernican revolution began for me and there was no going
back. This revolutionary link transformed my personal journey with
Christ, my marriage, parenting, and, ultimately, New Life Fellowship
Church where I pastor.
Living Gods WayA Beautiful Life
Truly, these have been the best twelve years of my life as a human
being, husband, father, follower of Jesus, and leader in his church.2 I
learned that if we do the hard work of integrating emotional health and
spirituality, we can truly experience the wonderful promises God has
given usfor our lives, churches, and communities. God will make
our lives beautiful.
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The apostle Paul recorded: What happens when we live [authentically] Gods way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way
that fruit appears in an orchard (Galatians 5:22 MSG). Using two popular versions of the Bible, let me demonstrate how Paul described these
beautiful fruits in Galatians 5:2223:
NIV

THE MESSAGE

Love
Joy
Peace
Patience
Kindness
Goodness

Affection for others

Exuberance about life
Serenity
A willingness to stick with things
A sense of compassion in the heart
A conviction that a basic holiness permeates
things and people
Involved in loyal commitments
Not needing to force our way in life
Able to marshal and direct our energies
wisely

Faithfulness
Gentleness
Self-Control

God promises if you and I will do life his way (even though it feels
unnatural and hard to us initially), then our lives will be beautiful.
Take a few moments to pause in your reading. Read slowly and
prayerfully the previous list, letting each word soak into you. Ask
yourself honestly: To what degree are these fruits realities in my life
today? Think about yourself at home, work, school, church. Allow
God to love you where you are now. Ask him to do his work in you,
that you might become the kind of person described in the previous
passage.
What is so tragic is how few people who desire God, attend and
serve their church faithfully, read their Bible, worship, pray, and
attend Sunday school classes and small groups do in fact experience
the beautiful life, these gifts from God. It goes back, I believe, to a
spirituality divorced from emotional healthone that allows deep,
underlying layers of our lives to remain untouched by God.
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Another Way
I believe, however, that the walls we hit in our journey with God
are gifts from him. It is not Gods intention that we join the ranks of
church leavers. He is changing and broadening our understanding of
what it means to be a Christ follower in the twenty-first centuryin
ways far more radical than we ever dreamed. Like with Abraham, he
is taking us on a journey with many twists and strange turns in order
that deep, experiential life changes might take place in you and me
through Jesus Christ.
The sad reality is that most of us will not go forward until the pain
of staying where we are is unbearable.
That may be where you are today. Receive your circumstance,
then, as his gift to you and open your heart as you read this book to
meet him in new and fresh ways.
We cant changeor better said, invite God to change uswhen
we are unaware and do not see the truth.
In the next chapter we will examine more closely the top ten symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality so we can begin to make the
changes God intends.

O God, I thank you for your grace and mercy in my life. If it were
not for you, I would not even be aware of you or my need for your
transforming work deep beneath the surface of my life. Lord, give me
the courage to be honest and to allow the Holy Spirits power to invade
all of who I am below the surface of my iceberg so that Jesus might be
formed in me. Lord, help me to grasp how wide and long and high and
deep the love of Christ is for me personally. In Jesus name, amen.

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CH A P T E R 2

The Top Ten Symptoms

of Emotionally Unhealthy
Spirituality
Diagnosing the Problem

Jay, one of our church members, recently shared with me: I was a
Christian for twenty-two years. But instead of being a twenty-twoyear-old Christian, I was a one-year-old Christian twenty-two times! I
just kept doing the same things over and over and over again.
Angela, in explaining why she had not attended church for more
than five years, asked me privately, Why is it that so many Christians
make such lousy human beings?
Ron, the brother of a member of the small group that meets in
our home, upon hearing the title of this book, laughed: Emotionally
healthy spirituality? Isnt that a contradiction?
Our problem revolves around misapplied biblical truths that not
only damage our closest relationships but also obstruct Gods work of
profoundly transforming us deep beneath the iceberg of our lives.
The Top Ten Symptoms of
Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality
The pathway for your spiritual life I describe later in this book is radical.
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That is, it very likely cuts to the root of your entire approach to following Jesus. Trimming a few branches by, for example, attending a
prayer retreat or adding two new spiritual disciplines to an alreadycrowded life will not be enough. The enormousness of the problem is
such that only a revolution in our following of Jesus will bring about
the lasting, profound change we long for in our lives.
Before I prescribe this pathway, it is essential for us to clearly identify the primary symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality that
continue to wreak havoc in our personal lives and our churches. 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
2. Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear
3. Dying to the wrong things
4. Denying the pasts impact on the present
5. Dividing our lives into secular and sacred compartments
6. Doing for God instead of being with God
7. Spiritualizing away conflict
8. Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure
9. Living without limits
10. Judging other peoples spiritual journey
1. Using God to Run from God
Few killer viruses are more difficult to discern than this one. On the
surface all appears to be healthy and working, but its not. All those
hours and hours spent lost in one Christian book after another . . . all
those many Christian responsibilities outside the home or going from
one seminar to another . . . all that extra time in prayer and Bible
study. . . . At times we use these Christian activities as an unconscious
attempt to escape from pain.
In my case, using God to run from God is when I create a great
deal of God-activity and ignore difficult areas in my life God wants
to change. Some examples:
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When I do Gods work to satisfy me, not him

When I do things in his name he never asked me to do
When my prayers are really about God doing my will, not
my surrendering to his
When I demonstrate Christian behaviors so significant
people think well of me
When I focus on certain theological points (Everything
should be done in a fitting and orderly way [1 Corinthians
14:40]) that are more about my own fears and unresolved
issues than concern for Gods truth
When I use his truth to judge and devalue others
When I exaggerate my accomplishments for God to subtly
compete with others
When I pronounce, The Lord told me I should do this
when the truth is, I think the Lord told me to do this
When I use Scripture to justify the sinful parts of my family, culture, and nation instead of evaluating them under his
Lordship
When I hide behind God talk, deflecting any spotlight on my
inner cracks and becoming defensive about my failures
When I apply biblical truths selectively when it suits my
purposes but avoid situations that would require me to make
significant life changes

How about an example? John uses God to validate his strong opinions on issues ranging from the appropriate length of womens skirts in
church to political candidates to gender roles to his inability to negotiate
issues with fellow non-Christian managers at work. He does not listen
to or check out the innumerable assumptions he makes about others.
He quickly jumps to conclusions. His friends, family, and coworkers
find him unsafe and condescending.
John then goes on to convince himself he is doing Gods work by
misapplying selected verses of Scripture. Of course that person hates
me, he says to himself. All those who desire to be godly will suffer
persecution. Ultimately, however, he is using God to run from God.
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2. Ignoring the Emotions of Anger, Sadness, and Fear

Many of us Christians believe wholeheartedly that anger, sadness, and
fear are sins to be avoided, indicating something is wrong with our
spiritual life. Anger is dangerous and unloving toward others. Sadness
indicates a lack of faith in the promises of God; depression surely
reveals a life outside the will of God! And fear? The Bible is filled
with commands to not be anxious about anything and do not fear
(Philippians 4:6 and Isaiah 41:10).
So what do we do? We try to inflate ourselves with a false confidence to make those feelings go away. We quote Scripture, pray
Scripture, and memorize Scriptureanything to keep ourselves from
being overwhelmed by those feelings!
Like most Christians, I was taught that almost all feelings are
unreliable and not to be trusted. They go up and down and are the
last thing we should be attending to in our spiritual lives. It is true that
some Christians live in the extreme of following their feelings in an
unhealthy, unbiblical way. It is more common, however, to encounter Christians who do not believe they have permission to admit their
feelings or express them openly. This applies especially to the more
difficult feelings of fear, sadness, shame, anger, hurt, and pain.
Yet how can I listen to what God is saying to me and evaluate what
is going on inside of me when I am so imprisoned?
To feel is to be human. To minimize or deny what we feel is a
distortion of what it means to be image bearers of our personal God.
To the degree that we are unable to express our emotions, we remain
impaired in our ability to love God, others, and ourselves well. Yet,
as we saw in the previous chapter, our feelings are also a component
of what it means to be made in the image of God. To cut them out of
our spirituality is to slice off a part of our humanity.
To support what I mistakenly believed about God and my feelings
I misapplied the famous illustration below1:

Used by permission.

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The way I thought my spiritual life should head down the tracks
began with the engine, where the driver of the train was factwhat
God said in Scripture. If I felt angry, for example, I needed to start
with fact: What are you angry about, Pete? So this person lied to you
and cheated you. God is on the throne. Jesus was lied to and cheated
too. So stop the anger.
After considering the fact of Gods truth, I considered my faith
the issue of my will. Did I choose to place my faith in the fact of Gods
Word? Or did I follow my feelings and fleshly inclinations, which
were not to be trusted?
At the end of the train was the caboose and what was to be trusted
leastmy feelings. Under no circumstances, Pete, rely on your feelings. The heart is sinful and desperately wicked. Who can understand
it [see Jeremiah 17:9]? This will only lead you astray into sin.
When taken in its entirety the practical implications of such an
imbalanced, narrow, biblical belief system are, as we shall see later,
enormous. It leads to a devaluing and repression of the emotional aspect
of our humanity that is also made in the image of God. Sadly, some of
our Christian beliefs and expectations today have, as Thomas Merton
wrote, merely deadened our humanity, instead of setting it free to
develop richly, in all its capacities, under the influence of grace.2
3. Dying to the Wrong Things
As Iraneus said many centuries ago, The glory of God is a human
being fully alive.
True, Jesus did say, If anyone would come after me, he must deny
himself and take up his cross daily and follow me (Luke 9:23). But
when we apply this verse rigidly, without qualification from the rest of
Scripture, it leads to the very opposite of what God intends. It results
in a narrow, faulty theology that says, The more miserable you are,
the more you suffer, the more God loves you. Disregard your unique
personhood; it has no place in Gods kingdom.
We are to die to the sinful parts of who we aresuch as defensiveness, detachment from others, arrogance, stubbornness, hypocrisy,
judgmentalism, a lack of vulnerabilityas well as the more obvious
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sins described for us in Scripture: Do not murder. Do not steal. Do

not bear false witness. Speak the truth (Exodus 20:1316 and
Ephesians 4:25).
We are not called by God to die to the good parts of who we
are. God never asked us to die to the healthy desires and pleasures of
lifeto friendships, joy, art, music, beauty, recreation, laughter, and
nature. God plants desires in our hearts so we will nurture and water
them. Often these desires and passions are invitations from God, gifts
from him. Yet somehow we feel guilty unwrapping those presents.
When I ask people, Tell me about your wishes, hopes, and
dreams, they are often speechless.
Why do you ask? they respond. Isnt my only wish, hope, and
dream supposed to be to serve Jesus?
Not exactly. 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 Pasts Impact on the Present
When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, whether as a child, teenager,
or adult, we are, in the dramatic language of the Bible, born again
( John 3:3). The apostle Paul describes it this way: The old has gone,
the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17).
These two verses and their meanings, however, are sometimes
misunderstood. Yes, it is true that when we come to Christ, our
sins are wiped away and we are given a new name, a new identity, a
new future, a new life. It is truly a miracle. We are declared righteous before God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
(Philippians 3:910). The eternal, holy God of the universe is no
longer our judge but our Father. That is the great news of the gospel.
But we need to understand this does not mean that what our past
lives were wont continue to influence us in different ways. I was under
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the illusion for years that because I accepted Jesus, my old life was no
longer in me. My past before Christ was painful. I wanted to forget it.
I never wanted to look back. Life was so much better now that Jesus
was with me.
I thought I was free.
Geri, after nine years of marriage, knew better. I will never forget
the first time we made a genograma diagram outlining some of the
patterns of our families. Our counselor at the time took about an hour
to ask probing questions about the interactions between members of
both of our families, to write two or three adjectives to describe our
parents and their relationships.
When the counselor finished, he simply asked us, Do you see any
similarities between your marriage and your parents?
We both sat there dumbfounded.
We were evangelical Christians. We were committed and stable. Our
priorities and life choices were very different from that of our parents.
Yet, underneath the surface, our marriage bore a striking resemblance to
that of our parents. Gender roles; the handling of anger and conflict and
shame; how we defined success; our view of family, children, recreation,
pleasure, sexuality, grieving; and our relationships with friends had all
been shaped by our families of origin and our cultures.
Sitting in that counselors office that day, embarrassed by the state
of our marriage, we learned a lesson we would never forget: even
though we had been committed Christians for almost twenty years,
our ways of relating mirrored much more our family of origin than the
way God intended for his new family in Christ.
The work of growing in Christ (what theologians call sanctification) does not mean we dont go back to the past as we press ahead to
what God has for us. 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.
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Frank attends church and sings about Gods love. On the way
home he pronounces the death penalty over another driver. For Frank
Sunday church is for God. Monday to Saturday is for work.
Jane yells at her husband, berating him for his lack of spiritual
leadership with the children. He walks away deflated and crushed. She
walks away convinced she has fought valiantly in Gods name.
Ken has a disciplined devotional time with God each day before
going to work, but then does not think of Gods presence with him all
through the day at work or when he returns home to be with his wife
and children.
Judith cries during songs about the love and grace of God at her
church. But she regularly complains and blames others for the difficulties and trials in her life.
It is so easy to compartmentalize God to Christian activities
around church and our spiritual disciplines without thinking of him
in our marriages, the disciplining of our children, the spending of our
money, our recreation, or even our studying for exams. According to
Gallup polls and sociologists, one of the greatest scandals of our day is
that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit
as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered and sexually immoral as the
world in general.3 The statistics are devastating:
Church members divorce their spouses as often as their secular neighbors.
Church members beat their wives as often as their neighbors.
Church members giving patterns indicate they are almost as
materialistic as non-Christians.
White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to
neighbors of another race.
Of the higher-commitment evangelicals, 26 percent think
premarital sex is acceptable, while 46 percent of lowercommitment evangelicals believe it to be okay also.4

Ron Sider, in his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience,

summarizes the level of our compartmentalization: Whether the issue
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is marriage and sexuality or money and care for the poor, evangelicals
today are living scandalously unbiblical lives. . . . The data suggest that
in many crucial areas evangelicals are not living any differently from
their unbelieving neighbors.5
The consequences of this on our witness to Jesus Christ are incalculable, both for ourselves and the world around us. We miss out
on the genuine joy of life with Jesus Christ that he promises ( John
15:11). And the watching world shakes its head, incredulous that we
can be so blind we cant see the large gap between our words and our
everyday lives.
6. Doing for God Instead of Being with God
Being productive and getting things done are high priorities in our
Western culture. Praying and enjoying Gods presence for no other
reason than to delight in him was a luxury, I was told, that we could
take pleasure in once we got to heaven. For now, there was too much
to be done. People were lost. The world was in deep trouble. And
God had entrusted us with the good news of the gospel.
For most of my Christian life I wondered if monks were truly
Christian. Their lifestyle seemed escapist. Surely they were not in the
will of God. What were they doing to spread the gospel in a world dying
without Christ? What about all the sheep who were lost and without
direction? Didnt they know the laborers are few (Matthew 9:37)?
The messages were clear:

Doing lots of work for God is a sure sign of a growing spirituality.

It is all up to you. And youll never finish while youre alive
on earth.
God cant move unless you pray.
You are responsible to share Christ around you at all times
or people will go to hell.
Things will fall apart if you dont persevere and hold things
together.

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Are all these things wrong? No. But 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 cant fail. When we work for God because of these things, our
experience of the gospel often falls off center. We become human
doings not human beings. Our experiential sense of worth and validation gradually shifts from Gods unconditional love for us in Christ
to our works and performance. The joy of Christ gradually disappears.
Our activity for God can only properly flow from a life with God.
We cannot give what we do not possess. Doing for God in a way that
is proportionate to our being with God is the only pathway to a pure
heart and seeing God (Matthew 5:8).
7. Spiritualizing Away Conflict
Nobody likes conflict. Yet conflict is everywherefrom law courts
to workplaces to classrooms to neighborhoods to marriages to parenting our children to close friendships to when someone has spoken
or acted toward you inappropriately. But the belief that smoothing
over disagreements or sweeping them under the rug is to follow
Jesus continues to be one of the most destructive myths alive in the
church today. For this reason, churches, small groups, ministry teams,
denominations, and communities continue to experience the pain of
unresolved conflicts.
Very, very few of us come from families where conflicts are
resolved in a mature, healthy way. Most simply bury our tensions and
move on. In my own family, when I became a Christian I was the great
peacemaker. I would do anything to keep unity and love flowing in
the church as well as my marriage and family. I saw conflict as something that had to be fixed as quickly as possible. Like radioactive waste
from a nuclear power plant, if not contained, I feared it might unleash
terrible damage.
So I did what most Christians do: I lied a lot, both to myself and
others.
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What do you do when faced with the tension and mess of disagreements? Some of us may be guilty of one or more of the following:
Say one thing to peoples faces and then another behind their
backs
Make promises we have no intention of keeping
Blame
Attack
Give people the silent treatment
Become sarcastic
Give in because we are afraid of not being liked
Leak our anger by sending an e-mail containing a not-so-subtle
criticism
Tell only half the truth because we cant bear to hurt a friends
feelings
Say yes when we mean no
Avoid and withdraw and cut off
Find an outside person with whom we can share in order to ease
our anxiety

Jesus shows us that healthy Christians do not avoid conflict. His

life was filled with it! He was in regular conflict with the religious leaders, the crowds, the discipleseven his own family. Out of a desire
to bring true peace, Jesus disrupted the false peace all around him. He
refused to spiritualize away conflict.
8. Covering Over Brokenness, Weakness, and Failure
The pressure to present an image of ourselves as strong and spiritually
together hovers over most of us. We feel guilty for not measuring
up, for not making the grade. We forget that not one of us is perfect
and that we are all sinners. We forget that David, one of Gods most
beloved friends, committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her
husband. Talk about a scandal! How many of us would not have erased
that from the history books forever lest the name of God be disgraced?
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David did not. Instead he used his absolute power as king to

ensure the details of his colossal failure were published in the history
books for all future generations! In fact, David wrote a song about his
failure to be sung in Israels worship services and to be published in
their worship manual, the psalms. (Hopefully he asked Bathshebas
permission first!) David knew the sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise
(Psalm 51:17).
Another of Gods great men, the apostle Paul, wrote about God
not answering his prayers and about his thorn in [the] flesh. He
thanked God for his brokenness, reminding his readers that Christs
power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:710). How
many Christians do you know who would do such a thing today?
The Bible does not spin the flaws and weaknesses of its heroes.
Moses was a murderer. Hoseas wife was a prostitute. Peter rebuked
God! Noah got drunk. Jonah was a racist. Jacob was a liar. John Mark
deserted Paul. Elijah burned out. Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal.
Thomas doubted. Moses had a temper. Timothy had ulcers. And all
these people send the same message: that every human being on earth,
regardless of their gifts and strengths, is weak, vulnerable, and dependent on God and others.
For years I would observe unusually gifted people perform in
extraordinary wayswhether in the arts, sports, leadership, politics,
business, academics, parenting, or churchand wonder if somehow
they were not as broken as the rest of us. Now I know they werent.
We are all deeply flawed and broken. There are no exceptions.
9. Living Without Limits
I was taught that good Christians constantly give and tend to others.
I wasnt supposed to say no to opportunities to or requests for help
because that would be selfish.
Some Christians are selfish. They believe in God and Jesus Christ,
but live their lives as if God doesnt exist. They dont think or care
about loving and serving others outside of their families and friends.
That is a tragedy.
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I meet many more Christians, however, who carry around guilt for
never doing enough. Pete, I spent two hours on the phone listening to
him and it still wasnt enough, a friend recently complained to me. It
makes me want to run away.
This guilt often leads to discouragement. And this discouragement
often leads Christians to disengagement and isolation from needy
people because they dont know what else to do.
The core spiritual issue here relates to our limits and our humanity. We are not God. We cannot serve everyone in need. We are
human. When Paul said, I can do everything through him who gives
me strength (Philippians 4:13), the context was that of learning to
be content in all circumstances. The strength he received from Christ
was not the strength to change, deny, or defy his circumstances; it was
the strength to be content in the midst of them, to surrender to Gods
loving will for him (Philippians 4:1113).
Jesus modeled this for us as a human beingfully God yet fully
human. He did not heal every sick person in Palestine. He did not raise
every dead person. He did not feed all the hungry beggars or set up job
development centers for the poor of Jerusalem.
He didnt do it, and we shouldnt feel we have to. But somehow
we do. Why dont we take appropriate care of ourselves? Why are so
many Christians, along with the rest of our culture, frantic, exhausted,
overloaded, and hurried?
Few Christians make the connection between love of self and love
of others. Sadly, many believe that taking care of themselves is a sin, a
psychologizing of the gospel taken from our self-centered culture. I
believed that myself for years.
It is true we are called to consider others more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). We are called to lay down our lives for others
(1 John 3:16). But remember, you first need a self to lay down.
As Parker Palmer said, Self-care is never a selfish actit is simply
good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to
offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give it the care
it requires, we do it not only for ourselves, but for the many others
whose lives we touch.6
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10. Judging Other Peoples Spiritual Journey

The monk, said one of the Desert Fathers, must die to his neighbor
and never judge him at all in any way whatever. He continued: If you
are occupied with your own faults, you have no time to see those of
your neighbor.7
I was taught it was my responsibility to correct people in error or
in sin and to always counsel people who were mixed up spiritually. I
therefore felt guilty if I saw something questionable and did nothing to
point it out. But I felt even guiltier when I was supposed to fix someones problem and had to admit I dont know how or I dont know
what to say. Wasnt I commanded to be ready to give an answer for
the hope that is in me (1 Peter 3:15)?
Of course, many of us have no trouble at all dispensing advice or
pointing out wrongdoing. We spend so much time at it that we end
up self-deceived, thinking we have much to give and therefore little to
receive from others. After all, were the ones who are right, arent we?
This often leads to an inability to receive from ordinary, less mature
people than ourselves. We only receive from experts or professionals.
This has always been one of the greatest dangers in Christianity.
It becomes us versus them. In Jesus day there was the superior in
group of Pharisees who obeyed Gods commands. And there was the
inferior out group of sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes.
Sadly, we often turn our differences into moral superiority or
virtues. I see it all the time. We judge people for their music (too
soft or too loud) and the length of their hair (too short or too long).
We judge them for dressing up or dressing down, for the movies they
watch and the cars they buy. We create never-ending groups to subtly
categorize people:

Those artists and musicians. They are so flakey.

Those engineers. They are so cerebral. Theyre cold as fish.
Men are idiots. Theyre socially infantile.
Women are overly sensitive and emotional.
The rich are self-indulgent and selfish.
The poor are lazy.

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We judge the Presbyterians for being too structured. We judge

the Pentecostals for lacking structure. We judge Episcopalians for their
candles and their written prayers. We judge Roman Catholics for their
view of the Lords Supper and Orthodox Christians from the Eastern
part of the world for their strange culture and love for icons.
By failing to let others be themselves before God and move at their
own pace, we inevitably 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, abandoning them
altogether or falling into a Who cares? indifference toward them.
In some ways the silence of unconcern can be more deadly than hate.
Like Jesus said, unless I first take the log out of my own eye,
knowing that I have huge blind spots, I am dangerous. I must see the
extensive damage sin has done to every part of who I amemotion,
intellect, body, will, and spiritbefore I can attempt to remove the
speck from my brothers eye (Matthew 7:15).
The Revolutionary Antidote
The pathway to unleashing the transformative power of Jesus to heal
our spiritual lives can be found in the joining of emotional health and
contemplative spirituality. In the next chapter I will explain what they
are and why they both must be integrated into our discipleship with
Christ.

Lord, when I consider this chapter, the only thing I can say is, Lord
Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner. Thank you, O God, that
I stand before you in the righteousness of Jesus, in his perfect record
and performance, not my own. Lord, I ask that you would not simply
heal the symptoms of what is not right in my life, but that you would
surgically remove all that is in me that does not belong to you. As I
think about what I have read, Lord, pour light over the things that are
hidden. May I see clearly as you hold me tenderly. In Jesus name, amen.

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EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY
SPIRITUALITY
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO BE SPIRITUALLY MATURE,
WHILE REMAINING EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE
By Peter Scazzero
Peter Scazzero learned the hard way: you can't be
spiritually mature while remaining emotionally
immature. Even though he was a pastor of a growing
church, he did what most people do:

Avoid conflict in the name of Christianity

Ignore his anger, sadness, and fear
Use God to run from God
Live without boundaries

Eventually God awakened him to a biblical integration of

emotional health, a relationship with Jesus, and the
classic practices of contemplative spirituality. It created
nothing short of a spiritual revolution, utterly
transforming him and his church.
In this best-selling book Scazzero outlines his journey
and the signs of emotionally unhealthy spirituality. Then
he provides seven biblical, reality-tested ways to break
through to the revolutionary life Christ meant for you.
The combination of emotional health and contemplative
spirituality, he says, unleashes the Holy Spirit inside
us so that we might experientially know the power of an
authentic life in Christ.

Get Your Copy of

EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY!

Learn More