Challenge 44. Blog 24

What Is It?

One crucial thing probably best predicts long-term fruitfulness in Christian calling more than any other factor. I've discovered this slowly, during the past 7 years as a Christian life coach specializing in helping people find and fulfill their calling, during the 7 years prior to that as a pastor specializing in discipleship and leadership development, and even during the 20 years prior to that as a volunteer church leader and disciple maker.

That “One Thing” is probably not what you think. It’s not a deep prayer life, great Bible knowledge, huge giftedness, devoted servanthood, stellar leadership, charismatic personality, or anything else commonly associated with success in Christian life.

“The One Thing”

The one thing that most hinders Christian calling is this: being emotionally unhealthy.

Surprised? The Bible shows that even Jesus grew in all ways, including emotional health:

• And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:52)

Below are some examples of how being emotionally unhealthy delays or derails Christian calling:

• A man knows the Bible inside and out, and he prays at least an hour each day, but people drop out of his small groups because he’s so rigid and judgmental.
• A woman is a gifted orator, but few people invite her to speak because she is so difficult to please.
• A man is a gifted musician, but when people don’t agree with him, he leaves the worship team for months, eventually returning and repeating the cycle.
• A woman has the spiritual gifts of helping and mercy, but she takes too much responsibility for those she helps, enabling their destructive habits or allowing their troubles to swamp her emotionally.
• A man has believed for years that God wants him to start a business and be God’s witness in the workplace, but he lacks the confidence to do it. Therefore, he’s stuck in “learning mode,” always reading books and taking courses, but never moving forward with his dream.
• A woman has never adequately processed the grief of losing her son to suicide, so she is stuck, feeling sad, purposeless, and of little use to God.
• A man hasn’t taken a full day off for a month, and vacations are so rare that he spends most of them just recovering. He works obsessively at a great career that he loves, and he knows God has called him to do it. However, his family rarely sees him, and he’s headed for a meltdown in life and calling.
• A woman ignores and even resents constructive criticism. Therefore, her Christian calling stalls.
• A man doesn’t deal well with emotion, and he’s not self-aware of his own emotion. Therefore, he seems shallow or out of touch to the people who could help him advance in his calling.
• A woman, unconfident of who she is and her value to God, keeps trying to do her calling like the people she admires. She becomes increasingly discouraged with the lack of results.
• A man is a wonderful prayer warrior, and he loves to serve and make a difference. But he's socially awkward and not very self-aware. Therefore, he doesn't work well with a team, so few people ask him to serve.

Peter Scazzero, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, says, "It's impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature."

My Story

One of the reasons I burned out when I was a pastor is that I was in many ways emotionally unhealthy and emotionally immature.

For example, two times in my life, I became so insecure that I dressed and acted more male than female.

The first time that happened, I was in eighth grade. Anything about science fascinated me. I read a science book every week. I conducted experiments at home. I even dissected a snake that died in our garage. The wonderful world of science was filled with fantastically orderly complexity and endless possibilities. I loved Star Trek, Star Wars, and Lost in Space. I also devoured classic inspiring fantasy books about good triumphing over evil, such as The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. 

My friends did not identify with any of this at all. They were into football games, hanging out at the drugstore, and who had a crush on whom. Gradually, my friends and I grew apart. Some of them even started making fun of me. I remember vividly some of those times of taunting during study hall in the cafeteria.

But my teachers seemed to understand me perfectly. They delighted in my requests for advanced work. They fed my hunger for knowledge and growth. They believed I could do whatever I wanted. And thankfully, so did my parents.

My closest friends became the people I admired who were older than me. With my peers, I felt woefully inadequate and out of touch. And since most of the people who understood me were male, and because I had only male role models for the things I most wanted to do, I started dressing and acting more male than female. I've always been somewhat of a tomboy, so it wasn't a far reach!

I also had a great interest in God, discipleship, and telling people about Him, ever since I was saved at age 9. But because of the way I came across—disingenuously male, unconfident, serious and withdrawn, logical but seemingly unsympathetic—I didn’t get many opportunities to use my spiritual gifts of teaching and leadership.

The second time that I dressed and acted more male than female was more than 30 years later, after I became a pastor. By that time, I had experienced some rather severe gender discrimination— although not at the church where I was a pastor—and the repressed anger and resentment caught up with me. And still, all of my favorite role models were male. When I hit a difficult season that shook my self-confidence, I again lapsed back into dressing and acting more male than female. My confusing signals again limited my effectiveness in my calling.

What helped me most in getting more emotionally healthy was transformational conversation with God, during which I clearly and in some ways miraculously heard Him affirming and valuing me for who I am. More about that later.

How to Get “The One Thing”

When I was least emotionally healthy, I slipped back into trying to be the people I admire instead of the incredibly loved and valued woman God created me to be. And I always knew, deep down, that I was emotionally unhealthy. I just didn’t know what to do about it. I wish I’d had the resources then that I do now.

Below are some excellent resources for becoming more emotionally healthy for your Christian life and calling:

• Evaluate your emotional spirituality:
  
  Take the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (EHS) Personal Assessment, written by best-selling author, pastor, podcaster, and entrepreneur, Peter Scazzero. Click here to take the assessment.
• Learn how to become more emotionally healthy and mature:
  
  Get Peter Scazzero’s groundbreaking book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. Click here to see it at Amazon.
• Learn how to hear God tell you how much he truly loves, accepts, and values you as His uniquely created son or daughter:
  
  Learn how to hear from God how much He loves and values you. Get Tony Stoltzfus’ transformational book, Questions for Jesus. Click here to see the book at Amazon.

King David, You, and Me

In the Bible, King David was far from perfect. He even committed adultery and then arranged for the woman’s husband to be killed. But God called David “a man after my own heart.” Even though David sinned, he repented and came back to God, showing remarkable emotional maturity and health.

• After removing Saul, [God] made David their king. He testified concerning him: “I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.” (Acts 13:22)

God wants us to be emotionally and spiritually healthy and mature, so that we might have the best relationship with Him, and so that we might experience maximum joy and fruitfulness in our Christian calling.

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