I’m finding myself on a needed journey toward more and more emotional maturity. Hopefully, I’m making some progress. Sadly, for a long time, I separated in my own mind emotional maturity from spiritual maturity.
It didn’t really make sense though–since I immediately equated a “tantrum” in someone else as not only emotional immaturity but also spiritual immaturity. Yet somehow, I overlooked the conjunction of the two in my own approach to spiritual growth. Not any more!
I’m beginning to realize the truth behind the following points found in Peter Scazzero’s challenging book, The Emotionally Healthy Church.
I. It Is Impossible To Be Spiritually Mature Without Being Emotionally Mature.
As Scazzero argues, we’ve accepted a subtle message that separates the emotional from the spiritual. Most often, we’ve concluded falsely that our emotions are unrelated to the quality of our spiritual life. This often results in the following reality in churches.
Many are supposedly “spiritually mature” but remain infants, children, or teenagers emotionally. They demonstrate little ability to process anger, sadness, or hurt. They whine, complain, distance themselves, blame and use sarcasm—like little children when they don’t get their way. Highly defensive to criticism or differences of opinion, they expect to be taken care of and often treat people as objects to meet their needs.
Obviously, we can’t continue to define spiritual maturity apart from emotional maturity–if we want to become truly Christlike.
II. To Be Emotionally Mature You Must Be Willing To Look Beneath The Surface.
If emotional maturity equates in many ways to Christlikeness, we need to be willing to aggressively seek out “sub-surface” issues. On a journey to emotional maturity, we’ll travel to subterranean places where we’ll need to shine the light on places we’d rather not and embrace a brutal honesty vulnerability before God.
As Dan Allender writes, that’s when change comes:
Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God… Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice…
However, we often turn a deaf ear- through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world. We are frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness.
In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God.
III. To Be Emotionally Mature You Must Go Backward To Go Forward.
In other words, the journey to maturity requires us to “go backward” in facing the realities of our past. At times we may need professional help to process these issues; at other times, we have to develop greater “reflective” discipline.
On a journey of emotional maturity, we’ll need to follow the wisdom of Erwin McManus:
To explore we must first excavate.
To discover we must first recover.
To reframe we must first reflect.
To imagine we must first examine.
To move forward we must first step back.
IV. To Be Emotionally Mature You Must Learn To Manage Pain.
As we journey below the surface and backward in the past, we’ll have to manage a certain level of pain. We’ll have to choose life and freedom and not succumb to a mind-set of victimism nor embrace the culture of blame.
(for a good audio file on this topic go to: http://northcoastchurch.com/singlepurpose/spteach/jan05/jan05hom.htm)
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