Sixth Pathway to Healing - Peace - Part II

 

Sixth Pathway to Healing – Peace – Part II

I know a disciple who once kept a resentment list of two hundred and fifty-six people.  He wrote down the names, dates, places and multiple offenses that each of these persons committed against him.  Averaging ten offenses per person, he had memorized nearly three thousand instances that thrust him into anger, fear and resentment.  What an incredible and immeasurable waste of this man’s intelligence, intensity and imagination.  Consider what he could have accomplished had he redirected his talents and time to other endeavors.  His creative channels were clogged with emotional vitriol thereby preventing him from producing anything constructive.  A correlation exists between creativity and complaining.  They cannot occupy the same mind.  If a person engages a creative project, he does not have time to complain.  If he begins to complain during the task, he will crease being creative.  Resentments which means to relive an experience compel a person to complain about the unfairness of a past injury.  Each time he thinks of the incident, he thirsts for revenge and justice.  Silently, he condemns God for doing nothing about the situation.  He burns with furor that the fugitives who violated him were never made to pay for their crimes.  Consider the inner turmoil that imprisons this disciple.  Within a flash of a thought, he descends at the speed of light into the quicksand of anger, fear and resentment.

 

To achieve inner peace, this man needs to purge himself of the oceanic toxicity that lies within him.  The first step of his catharsis is a fundamental choice to stop rehashing these memories.  He can burn the list and resolve not to make another one.  The positive emotions of that ritual will soon evaporate.  To lead a new life free of venom, he needs to accept himself unconditionally.  As he does, he will no longer need affirmation from others or punishment of victimizers to be content.  He will cease to be like Lot’s wife who looked back and turned to a pillar of useless salt.  Moreover, when this man accepts himself, his inner tempest dissipates.  I posit that external conflicts cloak inner strife. When a person stops fighting within, he finds himself embroiled in fewer if any outside battles.  Self-acceptance empowers a person with graciousness and compassion for himself which he then generously shares with everyone.

 

As forgiveness is another pathway to healing which I discourse upon in a separate section, I briefly mention its necessity in obtaining inner peace.  It is impossible to realize inner peace if you refuse to forgive anyone.  Any failure in this spiritual discipline means you continue to harbor emotional and mental sewage.  In the crevices of your mind and closets of your heart, you store anger, resentment and bitterness.  A part of you is a nuclear waste dump where potentially radioactive materials lurk in unseen areas, threatening your creative abilities and corroding your dreams and goals.  These hazardous thoughts and feelings slowly but surely poison your being.  They imprison you to the past thereby ruining your present and destroying your future.  To extricate yourself from this existential prison, you must unconditionally forgive anyone who ever injured, disrespected or offended you. 

 

If you have not yet forgiven some people, pray for willingness.  Almighty God will bestow encouragement and empower in response to your earnest prayers.  However, recall the reciprocal requirement of forgiveness.  To receive God’s mercy instead of His righteous judgment and punishment, you must extend the same to anyone who deserves it.  When you relinquish your right to retribution and restitution thereby agreeing to erase the offense, you release yourself from captivity.  I know several persons who would not forgive their offenders.  In time, their fury, vengeance and cynicism turned inward.  It metastasized into cancer and other lethal illnesses.  Forgiveness purges you of toxicity that erodes your inner being.  It further liberates you to enjoy your unique and creative life that God intends for you.  Knowing inner peace begins with forgiveness.

 

As it relates to monetary gain and wealth, good stewardship yields peace.  Debt indicates imbalance between resources and expenses.  In the United States, the banking class and complicit wizards of Madison Avenue trained average consumers to live in debt.  Over the last four decades, American citizens accumulated trillions of dollars of unsecured consumer debt.  This mountain of financial obligations siphons much needed resources from monthly budgets.  Debt is one of the most substantial threats to Christian families.  As I write, I add the interest that I have paid to creditors over the decades of my professional life.  I am ashamed to admit that I could have purchased and retired the mortgage on a nice house with the amount of interest that I have paid to creditors.  Nevertheless, as I dedicate myself to achieving debt-free living, I expect to live with a new peace and freedom.  I shall no longer cringe when my phone rings and vibrates.  I will not break into a sweat when I retrieve the daily mail.  Anxiety about unpaid and late bills will not commandeer my mental energy and imagination.  I will live with liberty to create, develop and produce to the glory of God. 

 

To dwell in peace as it relates to money and material gain, balance is important.  When do you have enough?  A study relating to happiness asked respondents how much money they would need to be happy.  Everyone stated a need to double their current income.  Persons who earn $50,000 annually wanted a raise of one hundred percent thereby earning $100,000.  The people who were earning at that level said they needed $200,000 per year.  Not surprising, within a year, respondents wanted to double the increase.  This survey indicates the lack of good stewardship and an inability to be grateful.  People increased their spending and raised their standard of living instead of saving and building wealth.  As they outgrew their houses, cars, clothes and other possessions, the raises led to doubling the square feet of their houses.  Their monthly mortgages and property taxes increased too.  If disciples fail to be grateful, they will continue to enslave themselves to debt.  Peace comes to persons who cultivate gratitude as a consistent spiritual discipline.  Thankfulness enables disciples to live debt-free which in turn empowers them with liberty to answer God’s call to myriad ministries because they are not constrained by the ball and chain of unsecured debt.

 

Another component of financial peace is having the resources to enjoy life as fully as possible.  A Christian spiritual teacher posits, “Absolute altruism is as worthless and meaningless as absolute greed.” God does not ask us to dwell in rachet poverty to do His work.  He also does not demand emasculation of our unique personalities.  He made us with our quirks, warts, oddities and preferences.  These characteristics distinguish us from other people and qualify us for tasks that only we can accomplish.  In our hobbies, passions and recreational activities, the Lord renews us.  Those periods of fun, laughter and sheer thrill from athletics, arts, culture, cuisine and entertainment refuel us for ministry.  One of the premiere twentieth century African American Baptist theologians loved baseball.  During the summer and early fall, he rearranged his schedule to accommodate his spiritual need to watch the boys of summer.  I once worked with a Belgium priest who was a huge fan of the New York Yankees.  He spent the summer on leave from his parish in Brussels to serve as a Catholic chaplain in one of the teaching hospitals on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  The parsonage where he stayed coincidentally was located twenty minutes from Yankee Stadium.  A very prominent Bible scholar, pastor and author of many books is an avid outdoorsman who hunts, fishes, hikes and camps. A mounted eight-point white tail buck and an authentic black bear rug adorn his living room.