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Monday, January 5, 2015
Jeff Lampl

The Top 10 Symptoms of emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality

□       Using God to run from God
    Are you so busy for God that you don’t have time to know Him, that he can’t get a
    word in “edgewise”,  that you never hear the words, “I make you to lie down in green
    pastures”?  

□        Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness and fear  
     Do you think these are things that you should “pray away” instead of bringing them
     directly to God?  

□        Dying to the wrong things
     Do you sacrifice the healthy pleasures of life for a life of fitful attempts to obey better,
     serve better, be better?  

□        Denying the past’s impact on the present
     Do you practice “forgetting what is behind” ignoring the reality that you are shaped for
     good or bad more by the past and your family of origin in ways that still control you?  

□        Dividing our lives into “secular” and “sacred” compartments
     Are you able to see that you don’t have a spiritual life and a secular life?  You only
     have a life.  

□        Doing for God instead of being with God
     Are you able to be alone with God in silence without doing something?  You are a
     human being not a human doing.  

□        Spiritualizing away conflict
     Do you deal with the conflict in an emotionally and spiritually healthy way?  

□        Covering over our brokenness, weakness and failure
     Can you admit failure, character flaws, fear and the dark places in your soul or does
     fear of their being known by you or others keep you “pushing that beach ball” under
     the surface, only to see it surface at the most inappropriate times  

□        Living without limits
     Can you say no without guilt?

□        Judging other people’s spiritual journey
     Do you find yourself doing this?

 

What, then, is the beginning of emotionally healthy spirituality?   It is bringing all of that directly to God and doing so long enough that you allow God to hear all of it.   Simply listen as what is in you meets God.    Before you conclude you quiet time, listening rather than doing all the talking, let the following passages do their work in you.  

“There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."     Romans 8:1, 37-39 (NIV)

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