Grow Into an Emotionally Mature Adult
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, prt. 7
Wildwind Community Church
November 21, 2010
David Flowers
Well, I’m sorry to say we are nearing the end of our Emotionally Healthy Spirituality series. It has been a difficult series in many ways, to be sure, but very rewarding. And of course ending the series does not mean we end the journey. Hopefully some things have happened in your life over the past few weeks that are going to take you in some brand new directions in your understanding of God.
I want to speak to you today about growing into an emotionally mature adult. Scazzero had a reason for the way he organized his book. Obviously we cannot be mature while we remain locked in the false self. We cannot be emotionally mature while we refuse to be honest about the impact of past events on our present way of being. Obviously we cannot go on to maturity if we get to the wall and give up entirely. We cannot go on to maturity if we do not face the reality of our grief and losses and mourn them properly. And we cannot go on to maturity if we refuse to cultivate a life of solitude and quietness and reflection and rest, which Sabbath and the Daily Office help us to do.
So it truly is a journey. But it’s not like we have to remain at stage 1 for ten years before we can move to stage 2. Think of it, instead, as being the case that the more you shed the false self, the more mature you can be. The more you grieve your losses appropriately, the more mature you can be. The more you learn to build your life around the rhythms of rest, the more mature you can be. Doing the work of the earlier stages increasingly frees you up to experience the freedom of the later stages. So if you begin dealing honestly with your losses right now, you will immediately begin living in a more mature way. If you begin acknowledging your limits right now as a gift and start living within those limits, you will automatically be living in a more mature way. That is how I hope you will understand this, and it is important, because otherwise you might feel like, “You mean I have to mourn my losses for thirty years before I can move on to maturity? Why bother?” But it’s not like that.
Consider that each of our previous lessons has actually been about freeing you up for this one – to live in an emotionally mature way. There’s another way we could put it to make it more clear. Each of these previous lessons has been about freeing you up to live – in truth. Who do we know that is truth? GOD, of course. So this literally IS the spiritual journey we are talking about. This IS the path to spiritual maturity. Can there be any other path than the path that leads into increasing truth? Remember, Jesus said:
John 8:32 (NKJV)
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
This world is full of unfree people, and I’m not talking about people in our prisons and penitentiaries. The church, also, is full of unfree people. There is only one reason people are not free, and that is because they don’t know the truth. There are only two reasons people don’t know the truth. They either have not been made aware of it, or they have chosen not to live according to it. Saying “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” is kind of like saying, “Lower speed limits save lives.” That is a true statement, but lower speed limits only save the lives of people who live according to the law. You can know the speed limit inside and out in your head, and still drive like an idiot into a median divider at 100 mph. Knowing it in your head doesn’t do you the slightest good. You will die because of your unwillingness to conform to what you know. You can know what Jesus said and taught inside and out in your head and live all your life in anger, defensiveness, guilt, blaming, lust, jealousy, regret, fear, etc., etc. Knowing the truth of God in your head doesn’t do you the slightest good. Every day you will experience in your life the same consequences as someone who doesn’t claim to know God at all, and in fact that is exactly what we currently see in the church – undiscipled disciples, as Dallas Willard calls them. People who claim to know the truth, but all you need to do to see that they don’t is to look at their lives. The truth always brings freedom when you really know it. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is the journey that takes you from knowing about the truth in your head, to living in the truth in your mind, heart, and life. And I don’t want to be overly black and white, either. Many of you are partly on the journey. You are experiencing some freedom, maybe more than you had before you came to God, but still stuck in habits of denial and defensiveness. Maybe until now you just didn’t see what emotional health had to do with God, but hopefully you’ve begun to realize that it has everything to do with God because it’s all about truth – getting rid of the false self and coming to live in the true self God created you to be.
So today we want to focus on what it means to live as an emotionally mature adult. To live this way, we must first understand what emotional maturity looks like. Pages 178 and 179 in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality gives characteristics of Emotional Infants, Emotional Children, Emotional Adolescents, and Emotional Adults, but for time’s sake I just want to focus on that last one. Emotional Adults:
•Are able to ask for what they need, want, or prefer – clearly, directly, and honestly
•Recognize, manage, and take responsibility for their own feelings and thoughts
•Can, when under stress, state their own beliefs and values without becoming adversarial
•Respect others without having to change them
•Give people (including themselves) 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 discuss them freely 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
That’s what emotional adulthood looks like.
Most adults are not emotionally mature, my friends. The ones who are, are the emotional and spiritual leaders for the rest of us. Can you imagine the freedom that would be in this? Everyone in this room is in a different place on this journey. My concern is doing what I can to make sure everyone is actually ON the journey – and that happens as we find, face, and follow truth. [You’d think that three years ago when I came up with “find, face, and follow truth” as a mission statement, I was preparing for this season in the life of our church. And maybe I was, although I didn’t know it!]
Let’s look at what the Apostle Paul had to say about maturity:
Philippians 3:10-16 (NIV)
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
15 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
He begins with knowing Christ, understanding that sharing in the power of his resurrection (new life) happens through sharing in his sufferings (his death). Jesus died, and we have to die. Jesus rose, and we will raise.
Next Paul says something fascinating. “not that I have already obtained all this.” In other words, I’m not there yet. I’m on the journey. I have a ways to go. Yet, he says, I “press on.” But he doesn’t simply press on by himself. He presses on in the knowledge that he is trying to attain what has already been given to him. “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me.” In other words, I was created for this. God created and called me to this maturity that comes through the death of my false self – but in some ways, I still don’t get it. In some ways, I’m still a little immature. And somehow, what I’m striving for has already been secured for me.
Then in verse 15, Paul drops a bomb. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. In other words, to be a mature Christ-follower is to realize that you only grow, you only move forward, by dying. That is what Paul is saying. Paul is very clear that to experience new life in Christ, we must die. In other words, we must lay down the false self. So what then is the answer to the question, “Why am I not experiencing the life of God?” The answer is, “Because you are not dying.” It is “as you die” that you attain resurrection!
Matthew 10:39 (NIV)
39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
This is precisely what Jesus meant when he said:
Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
“Learn from me.” What is it, exactly, that we are learning from Jesus? How not to have premarital sex? How to not steal? How to be nice? No. What we are learning from Jesus is how to die. We are learning how to die ten thousand little deaths every day to the desires, dreams, plans, perceptions, and judgments that spring from the false self.
Luke 9:23 (NIV)
23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
We are dying to the person we think we are so that the person we really are can live! That is why dying is an absolute condition of finding true life! This, by the way, is the reason why heaven and hell become almost moot issues. In fact, the goal of the Christian life, is to die before we die. The Apostle Paul nails it here:
Philippians 3:7-11 (NIV)
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul says, first, that in order to know God, I have lost all things – everything I once thought dear, thought was so precious and special and valuable. All things. Paul says, furthermore, that I consider those things rubbish. I don’t even miss them. I thought it was going to be so hard to let go of my false self, but I never miss anything I have given up. As Cynthia Beaugeault sings, “When have I ever been less by dying?” As I die these thousand little deaths every day, I always find that I never miss any of those pieces of the false self that keep peeling away. So why should I fear physical death? It’s just the final piece of that person I know as “me” that I am one day going to lay down. But because while I lived on earth I have already died a million times, and never once missed a single piece of my false self, I can know FROM EXPERIENCE that I can also die this final death – laying down my body – and that like every other death, I will never miss it. Every time I die, I gain more God, more peace, more love, more joy, more LIFE! Just like Jesus promised. That’s why Paul sometimes seems to be eager when he talks about death. Because he has learned from experience that death is what reveals life.
So Paul says this isn’t about me finding out how good I am by following any rules, it’s about me laying ALL OF THAT DOWN, and finding that God is faithful, God is here, God is mighty to save, and is saving me every second of the day! In this passage, Paul is talking about dying before we die!
The emotionally healthy adult is a person who has died those deaths, allowed those layers of the false self to peel away. They are able to let go of fear, and therefore can handle themselves appropriately in conflict. They have come to love themselves the way God loves them, and therefore are able to extend this same love to others.
Chapter 7 in the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is full of a lot of fantastic tools that can help us reach toward greater emotional maturity, and I encourage each of you to purchase and read that book if you are not already doing it.
I just want to address one of those tools in this message today, and it’s the idea of practicing the presence of other people. We are all, by nature, egocentric. Our eyes look out, but never look in. We speak very highly in the church of the idea of practicing the presence of God, learning to be ever mindful that God is present with us, but it is just as important to practice the presence of people. The fact is, we experience God through others, and others experience God through us. If we are not practicing the presence of other people, we are missing a lot of where God is. Even in the people that really irritate us, as we are learning, God is in your irritation, as you say, “What is happening here, in my reaction to this person? Why am I so upset? Where is God in this moment? How is God trying to love me? How is God wanting to love this other person through me?”
1 John 4:20 (NIV)
20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
We already know that we can only love God to the extent that we love others. Practicing the presence of people is where we learn to do that. We practice the presence of other people by:
1. Listening to them. Not so that we can think of what we want to say, but listening to hear and understand. Question: What does this person INTEND?
2. Listening beyond their words – hearing them as people who are unique, with their own history, their own hurts, their own experiences, and their own reasons for seeing life as they do. Listening for hurts, for sensitivities, for places where we can encourage and love and serve them. Question: What is life like for this person?
3. Learning to respect that others are different from me and believing deeply that this is not only acceptable, it is essential, and it is a blessing. This is where we give up believing, “What a wonderful world it would be, if only everyone were more like me.” How does this person reflect another aspect of who God is?
4. Learning to give up the need for people to fit into my plans. Here is where we get beyond using people and move toward loving them as individuals. Question: How can I hear what God is doing IN this person and stop thinking about what I want to do TO them?
5. Learning to see each and every person (good, bad, black, white, gay, straight, believer, non-believer) as a beloved child of God – someone for whom Christ died, and responding to them accordingly.
All of these require us to move past our default ways of thinking about, treating, and hearing other people. None of these things come naturally. So let’s piece together what this means. If these things are the way we practice the presence of people, and if practicing the presence of people is the way we practice the presence of God and grow up into emotional adults, but if practicing the presence of people requires us to do things that do not come naturally, what can we then conclude? We can conclude that being an emotional adult does not come naturally. And that coming to live in God does not come naturally. And that’s EXACTLY where our problem lies!
Because becoming a physical adult not only comes naturally, it is inevitable. All you have to do is let the clock pass and you’ll become a “grown-up.” But most adults are emotional infants, emotional children, emotional teenagers in adult bodies. They are motivated and controlled by things that are outside of their awareness. They are responding to other people out of fears and insecurities and guilt and inadequacies from their past, still very much living in yesterday while they talk the language of accepting what is and today is a new day, and let bygones be bygones. Growing up physically requires almost no effort. Growing up emotionally and spiritually takes a lifetime and is difficult. Easier to talk about not getting the right breaks, or about luck, or fate, or chance, or even about providence and God’s will then it is to take responsibility for our own lives and intentionally move into adulthood. But that’s what we’ve been talking about the past few weeks – moving into emotional adulthood. Coming to see where we are in chains from our past, and allowing God into those places to bring healing and freedom.
We’re going to move into communion now, where we commemorate Jesus – someone who suffered, who took responsibility for his life, who showed us what emotional and spiritual health and maturity looks like – and what it will sometimes cost. Jesus showed us how to be human. How to live and love and die, both during our life and at the end! Let us take a few moments to reflect on his life and death, then I will pray for us as a congregation, and will invite you to come forward to receive the elements.
TWO MINUTES OF MEDITATION
Jesus, thank you for showing us how to live, and that the best kind of living requires a lot of dying along the way. Help us unlearn those things we think we know, that are actually keeping us from knowing you! We think we know so much, but know so little peace, so little love, so little joy, so little life – and that is all you! Forgive our ignorance, our presumption, our complacency, our sense of entitlement to gifts of heaven that we have not prepared ourselves to be capable of receiving. Thank you for showing us the way -- may we walk in it. Thank you for opening the door – may we walk through it. Thank you for showing us the life – may we step into it. In Christ’s name, Amen.
