Diagnosing the Problem – Top Ten Symptoms of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality - Lesson 2

How did you feel as you spent time meditating? How much did you meditate? Do you want to get well…that was and still is the question.  Naaman  is sent to dip in the river 7 times, the widow is called to use the last of her food, Jesus spits and makes some mud…there are a lot of ways to be healed that we do not think of…feel comfortable with…or even understand

I am telling you that contemplative spirituality is essential to your emotional/spiritual health – the scriptures speak of meditation, alone time, quiet time (we took the quiet out of quiet time) – Be still my soul – 

Eli is going to help us with some meditation techniques – 10 minutes a day and then you will want to increase it – this is 100% for your benefit – draw near to me and I will draw near to you -  

Let us continue with our examination of emotionally unhealthy spirituality – breaking down this concept as much as we can, will help us identify where we will do serious work on growing and becoming healthier.

Many of our issues and problems revolve around misapplied Biblical truths that not only damage our closest relationships – but also obstruct God’s work of profoundly transforming us deep beneath the surface of the iceberg of our lives.

The farther we get the more we will see some radical things need to change within us – many of us thought the radical changes we over – we were hoping for a maintenance plan, and that would be enough for us to run properly…a little of this or that – but we are going to be making profound changes for most of us – that will begin next month – first a diagnosis is needed – examine yourself as we talk about top ten symptoms of unhealthy emotional spirituality

1 - Using God to run from God – this is difficult to discern actually – but a killer none the less: study, books, prayer, seminars, ect – these can all be very good – BUT – sometimes these activities are an unconscious attempt to escape from pain – our God activity allows us to focus on something other than the difficult areas of my God really wants me to change – some examples
•	Doing God’s work to satisfy me not Him (personal fast, evangelism goals, service, planning)
•	Doing things in God’s name he never asked me to do
•	Prayers that focus on God doing my will – not surrendering to His
•	Doing my Service to be noticed by significant others so they think well of me
•	Spiritual focus that are more about my own fears and issues than concern  for God’s truth
•	When I use His truth to judge or devalue others
•	Exaggerating my accomplishments for God to subtly compete with others
•	Pronouncing “the Lord told me to do this” when truth is “I think the Lord told me to do this”
•	Using scripture to justify sinful parts of my family, culture, and nation instead of evaluating all under His Lordship
•	Hiding 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
EXAMPLES: “John” - Using God to validate your strong opinions – moral standards, politics, and roles in society – jumping to conclusions and making spiritual assumptions – people find John unsafe and condescending. John goes on to convince himself that he is doing God’s work by misapplying scripture – the world will hate you on account of me, anyone who wants to live a Godly life will be persecuted. So many people have patted themselves on the back for persecution they brought on themselves – they were jerks or prejudiced and hurt others – when “kicked out of malls” or kicked off campus or damaged relationships they claimed a stake in II Timothy 3:12…when they were more like Matthew 7:21-23. 

2. Ignoring the Emotions of Anger, Sadness, and Fear – Many of us really feel like these are sins to be avoided – ESP – we failed to take on the roles in each other’s lives mainly because we are conditioned to not want to identify with weakness and fear…and sadness…oh my
•	Anger is dangerous  and unloving
•	Sadness means we lack faith in God’s promises / and depression must mean we are outside of God’s will
•	Fear...fear – ever heard Jesus say “Don’t be afraid!”? Be anxious about nothing.
So what do we do – we often act like these aren’t even real feelings – if they were not real there would not be passages like the ones we have – false confidence does not make these feelings go away, running does not make these feeling go away – we don’t want to be LABLED – 

We’ve been taught that feelings are unreliable – our hearts are deceitful above all things…so Christians are extreme in allowing their feelings to dictate how they live an unhealthy life – but most disciples I have seen reject these feelings, do not express them as they should – especially the more difficult feelings of fear, shame, sadness, anger, hurt, and pain. We see God and Jesus experience and express all of these emotions in scripture – to deny our feelings is to distort our life as image bearers of God – 
FACT – FAITH – FEELINGS train – 
•	The fact of scripture – what am I angry about? I was lied to…so was Jesus…so get over it
•	Once I see the facts – I go to my faith – I must do God’s will
•	Do I consider my feelings? Jeremiah 17:9 – heart is deceitful – do not rely on your feelings
This pattern can devalue the emotional aspect of our lives and lead to a state where we have “deadened our humanity, instead of setting it free to develop richly in all its capacities, under the influence of grace.” Thomas Merton

3. Dying to the Wrong Things – Luke 9:23 – we need to deny ourselves daily if we are to be Jesus’ disciples – but we must make sure we are dying to the right things and denying the right things – we are to die to the sinful parts of who we are – pride, defensiveness, detachment, hypocrisy, judgementalism, the more obvious physical sins -

We are not called to die to the “good” parts of who we are – friendship, art, music, recreation, laughter, beauty, and nature – God gives us desires and we are called to nurture them to help them grow – he invites us to life to the full – why do we have such a hard time dreaming for self, having vision, setting personal goals – 

God intends for our true self – deeper self – to blossom as we follow him throwing off the sin that so easily entangles – this is part of the sanctification process – we are holy…being made holy as the false self is stripped away and we are being transformed more and more into his likeness – this is how we find out his will for our lives – Romans 12:2

4. Denying the Past’s Impact on the Present – Phil 3
When we come to the faith we are born again – a new creation – all things new – II Corinthians 5 – amazing – incredible- awesome! This is the good news of the gospel to be sure! But that does not mean that our past lives do not continue to influence us in different ways – 
Consider for a moment your past: parents, their marriage, their parenting, finances, dealing with conflict- write two of three adjectives about your family members and their relationships…then step back and take a look – does it sound like you?
We see ourselves as disciples – committed and strong; our priorities are different, - yet our marriages look striking familiar! Ellen is a runner…her mom and grandmother we bother runners – I am a STUFFER, my Dad is a stuffer – now we also have a lot of our parents strengths as well – but how we deal with conflict, communicate, ect…chip off the old block – recreation, pleasure, grieving, success, anger, shame, friendships – all get shaped by our upbringing and culture – most of us are emotionally shaped by our past / our culture and family – and we are mentally shaped by current context – forgetting what is behind….we go back in order to break free from unhealthy patterns
5. Dividing our lives into “Secular” and “Sacred” Compartments – 
•	Sing about God’s love – want to murder someone on I-40
•	Sunday for the Lord – Monday –Saturday for me
•	Yell at your spouse for their lack of spirituality – thinking you stood up for God
•	Daily quiet time – fail to take it with you to work or at home with family / friends
•	Emotional at church about worship – complain and blame others for trials and difficulties
Polls show most 21st century Christians  are as likely to embrace “pagan” culture as any other people walking around (divorce, abuse, greed, racism are equal inside and outside of American churches) 26% of “committed Christians” think pre-marital sex is acceptable it jumps to 46% for the not-so-committed.

When we compartmentalize – we miss out on so much genuine joy God has planned for us – and the watching world shakes it head because they see the gap between what we say and what we do every day.

6. Doing for God instead of Being with God – Being productive and getting things done are HIGH priorities in our country – Necessity is the mother of invention – we gotta do more – Praying and enjoying God for the sheer joy of delighting in Him…a luxury – we can do that when we get to heaven – people are lost we gotta get on it…NOW! The Laborers are few…can’t you see that!
•	The message was clear: THE MISSION
•	Doing lots of work is a sure sign of a growing spirituality
•	It’s all up to us – and we’ll never be able to do enough
•	God won’t move unless we pray
•	You must share Christ at all times or people will go to Hell
•	It will fall apart if you don’t persevere and hold things together
Are these thoughts ALL wrong – no! But work FOR God that is not NOURISHED by a life filled WITH God will eventually be contaminated with pride, ego, power, needing approval from others, and having the wrong view of what success is in God’s eyes – a belief that “we can’t fail”.

Our sense of experiential sense of validation and worth shifts from God’s unconditional love to our works and performance – Our activity for God can only flow from our experience with God – a life with him – Being proportional in our doing and being with God is the path to a pure heart, and seeing God. Matthew 5:8 / 7:21

7. Spiritualizing Away Conflict: No one likes conflict – but it’s everywhere – courts, classrooms, homes, and churches…The belief that smoothing over things will help us following Jesus is inaccurate - it is destructive and when we do that we continue to experience the pain of unresolved conflict.
Very few of us grew up seeing conflict resolved in a mature and healthy ways  - Becoming a disciple made me want to be the peacemaker and resolve conflict quickly – a fixer –but also that fed into my sinful nature of  being a liar – I have lied a lot to myself and to others…especially Ellen over the years.
What do you do when faced with tension and disagreement?
•	Say one thing to someone’s face and another behind their back
•	Make promises with no intention of keeping them
•	Blame  
•	Attack
•	Give people the silent treatment
•	Give in because you are afraid of not being liked
•	Leak anger through email containing not so subtle criticism
•	Tell half the truth because you don’t want to hurt your friend’s feelings
•	Say yes when you mean no
•	Avoid and withdraw and cut off
•	Find an outside person with whom we can share in order to ease our anxiety

Emotional honesty is incredibly important to develop and communicate properly – in love – Jesus shows us not to avoid conflict – out of a desire to bring true peace Jesus disrupted false peace all around him – he refused to spiritualize away conflict; read the new testament… His family, his disciples, the Pharisees, the crowds, ect.

8.Covering Over Brokenness, Weakness, and Failure – The pressure to present ourselves as strong and spiritually together hovers over most of us – we feel guilty for not measuring up – we feel like we have to be perfect or people will not like us – David (Psalm 51) Paul (II Cor 12:7-10)
•	Moses – temper / murder ;  Thomas - Doubted Jesus
•	Noah – drunk; Jacob was a liar
•	Peter – rebuked Jesus, questioned a vision from heaven 3 times, and was openly prejudice ; Mark – deserted Paul; Timothy - ulcers
•	Jonah – racist; Hosea’s wife was a prostitute
We think so many people have it together or churches have it together – no one does. Notice I used people who have died and none who may be reading this…but think about what could be written about you? Do you see your weaknesses, where you are broken, what areas of life are failures? Don’t you know that you have a perfect Father who loves you and wants to heal, bind, and lead you in victory/ don’t you remember that Jesus came to bring you complete joy and a full life?

9. Living Without Limits – We need boundaries, without them disaster can strike – Ellen and the sister who cornered her while she was very sick late one night after midweek – answering my phone at the dinner table “sure I‘ve got a few minutes”, 
We feel like we have to go and do all the time – to not do so would be selfish – 
Living without Limits produces – Guilt – Discouragement – Disengaged - Philippians 4:13 says we can do all things it does not say we can do everything – it is in the context of contentment within our daily circumstances
Think of Jesus’ life – was every dead person raised, every cripple healed, every poor person given a home and food? – no – the combination of loving others and loving self – stewardship

10. Judging Other People’s Spiritual journey – Matthew 7:1-5
Are you the person who likes to Disciple in the moment – evaluates everything – critique each part of the service – be ready to give advice in all matters –I am and it is overwhelming…….and unhealthy
This thought can lead to us having no trouble at seeing what others need to change, giving them our input – at the exclusion or to avoid really dealing with what we need to work on – it leads us to be unable to receive help from others  - 
•	We can easily become morally superior – us v. them mentality – there was another group in Christian history like this…
•	It leads to us creating “groups” of “others” – they are too this or that – old school, weak on doctrine, harsh, uncommitted, not sold out, too much structure, not enough structure
•	We fail to let people be disciples before God as they move at their own pace
•	We fail to take the log out of eye before we remove the speck from someone else

Next 28 days  - 
10 minutes a day – Meditation – contemplative time with God – serenity, affection, ect

Study these 10 symptoms of EUS – see where you are in order to see where you need to focus your plan to grow out of these unhealthy patterns and develop healthy spirituality

Emotional health + contemplative spirituality