Excerpts

Originally posted January 19th, 2006.

Well I wrote a paper on how psychology and spirituality intersect for a scholarship from my school. Anyways if you are a faithful reader of my blog, as more and more people are, you would notice that this is one of my passions. Well maybe I didn't write about it explicitly but it was definitely in there. Anyways, I thought I'd share some quotes from my paper to give you the gist of it. Too long? Well it's a 10 page paper so duh! But read the first few quotes, I think it will catch your interest.

Spiritually integrative living is simply living in a way that reflects your faith in a God who is real, powerful, and perfect.

Spiritual transformation occurs as a result of seeing God’s faithfulness in one area and making a decision, in faith, to follow God in other areas, believing that God will once again prove faithful.... [or in other words] is simply moving towards a spiritually integrated lifestyle.

Now if you would survey a newly converted Christian, I do not think that you will find that they really exude much spiritual “fruit.” The supernatural intervention that we all wish would occur just does not seem to be happening. That is because, in my opinion, spiritual transformation occurs through very ordinary and “unspiritual” means.

By (the church) subjecting it’s members to a weekly sermon, Sunday school for the more devout, and an encouragement to set off a daily quiet time, many believers, myself included for most of my life, have been convinced that spiritual growth came when you have heard the message enough times, as if it did not take intentional implementation.

But if one admits their own inability to manage their own life then they have admitted that they must follow outside advice to get better.

I was often mistaken in my Christian walk to believe that changing myself meant creating a seething hatred within myself over my sins....But part of human nature is that our emotions are merely a signal for us to change and not a solution to our problems. It is crucial to understand that our sickness is incurable by our own power.

I have noticed that the spiritual disciplines are so indoctrinated... that even the mention of them often evokes a great deal of negative feelings.... because along with the spiritual disciplines comes a burden of guilt for not practicing them.

***The person who practices the spiritual disciplines rightly is doing so because they are keenly aware at how their life self-destructs when they try to manage it themselves. ***

When someone begins a relationship with God they have to commit to it or it will ruin them. The guilt produced by living in the awareness of God’s presence without actually changing your lifestyle will simply destroy you.

Once you are there you must learn to take wise counsel, study the Word, and surrender each moment to God. For each negative thought, you must replace it with a positive thought. For each instance where you want to sin, you will find that you must make an action of love. I have learned that you must become aware of your feelings, reactions, and thoughts.

But it seems that each step we take in faith, although we feel like it is the worst way in the world to do things, brings us to a better place where we grow in hope and freedom. That hope and freedom is the ultimate goal of spiritually integrated living.

Comments? Questions? Criticisms?