Sixth Pathway to Healing - Peace - Part III

Sixth Pathway to Healing – Peace – Part III

 

One of the most popular Southern Baptist pastors in the United States possesses photo credits that rival journalists of major national newspapers.  This clergyman devotes his sabbatical days to spending time in natural picturesque settings.  He takes the most captivating photos placing the viewer within the brook, mountain range, valley, ravine and forest.  From angelically painted fall foliage to majestic ski slopes to verdant meadows teeming with colorful plants to the astonishing symmetry of perfectly sown beds of a tobacco field, he allows people to travel the world with their imaginations.  A Scottish born pastor with a charge in Minnesota often references his passion for golfing.  Whether baseball, hunting, photography, golfing or myriad other hobbies, these pastors find renewal and fresh ideas during this time away from ministry.  I suspect their creative muse joins them in these outings.  In their subconscious, they write sermons, essays, memoranda and books.  However, they need funds, equipment and resources to facilitate their recreation.  As they serve faithfully, they have the right to enjoy activities that rejuvenate them.  They need finances to purchase tickets, guns, clubs and cameras.  How sad and possibly resentful and bitter they would be if they could only imagine these hobbies.  There is nothing wrong with servants of God partaking of hobbies and expending requisite resources to enable their pastimes.  Excess and greed would negate this reasonable allowance.  Yet, there is nothing sinful about the foregoing men and their families having money, time and means to engage in activities that equip them to achieve and succeed in ministry.  Peace demands attaining balance between ministry and recreation as well as finances and fun.

 

Holistic health includes mental, emotional, physical and spiritual components.  A popular definition of insanity declares, “Insanity is taking the same actions and expecting different results.”  Sanity conversely is soundness of mind which equates with mental balance and rationality.  Extreme emotion means you are mentally unbalanced.  Rage and passion are two of the chief motivations of murder.  Their ferocity deadens the mind’s reasoning abilities.  Before an enraged person realizes his “insanity,” someone is dead.  To live in peace, it is imperative that a person systematically trains his mind to avoid overreacting.  As with the necessity of balance in the mind, it is equally required in matters of the heart.  Lust is more emotional than it is mental or physical.  Easily, it leads to sexual promiscuity and infidelity.  The maniacal desire to lay with someone eventuates in the loss of moral, ethical and spiritual principles.  Imbalance compels you to compromise yourself to your base instincts.  You digress to your animalistic dimension and forget your higher self.  Lust for position, power and money yields betrayal, deceit and theft among other crimes.  Unbridled lust can irreparably damage personal and professional relationships.  It results in duplicity whereby you can use someone for your own gain without any regard for his or her dignity. 

 

Physical health is necessary to maintenance of health in all other components of your life.  As corny as it may sound, health is wealth.  Without consistently good physical health, you experience severe limitations in actualizing your purpose and destiny.  Debilitating diseases such as diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure and renal challenges undermine disciple’s creativity and contributions to expanding Christ’s kingdom and developing a more just and equitable society.  In the American Church, we face the hard reality that obesity and its residual causes of death threaten millions of good and loving Christian people.  Many of our brothers and sisters die young and early from preventable illnesses.  Good stewardship of the body which is the temple of God is as important as discipline and balance in all other areas of life.  To enjoy peace, you need good physical health.  Otherwise, lack of mental, emotional and physical health inevitably creates a vacuum which addiction readily fills.

 

“Live one day at a time.”  In the Sermon the Mount, Jesus teaches the crowd, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”  (Matthew 6:34 – KJV) Maintaining spiritual health is a daily practice.  In its most practical sense, spiritual health is integrity, which is the perfect symmetry of reason, principles and character. Inner healing and wholeness require diligent practice of spiritual disciplines.  Many people believe a dramatic and transformative conversion experience comprehensively instills integrity within disciples.  That experience is a catalyst as it begins a lifetime of change and progress.  The Apostle Paul did not become the great evangelist, teacher and church builder to the Gentiles on the Damascus Road.  He began his forward march toward fulfillment of his destiny on that day.  For the first time, Paul genuinely hears the voice of the Lord and listens to Him.  Ironically, in Paul’s blindness, he sees God and finally apprehends the basic theological doctrine that “God is love.”  With neophyte fever, Paul with restored eyesight enthusiastically preaches Christ.  He alarms other believers as they suspect Paul of duplicity.  In His infinite wisdom, God removes Paul from preaching and evangelizing.  For fourteen years, Paul leaves the public circuit for inner preparation.  In that time, the Lord taught Paul what His love really means and how disciples demonstrate God’s love with integrity.  Essentially, Paul learns the clearest knowledge of God’s love is practical demonstration of it.  Paul’s ceases his bloodthirstiness towards the Church and becomes one of its greatest purveyors.  His integrity emerges one day at a time.  Spirituality is a potent means of healing from formative and childhood trauma.  It empowers you to resolve daily adversities.  As you utilize your spiritual toolbox, you reinforce mental and behavioral patterns that yield spiritual health and inner peace.

 

Genuine self-expression is an outgrowth of peace.  In another section of this extensive discourse delineating seven pathways to inner healing and wholeness, I discuss self-acceptance.  It is rudimentary to holistic personal health.  The ability to accept yourself as unconditionally as God does is the main prerequisite to living happy, joyous and free.  You are grateful for the unique life which God gives to you.  You actualize gifts, talents, and endowments of your distinct personality.  You no longer need to apologize, explain, defend, excuse or justify yourself.  Self-expression is evident in your clothing, fashion, intellectual interests, vocation, mission, and artistic preferences that reflect your authenticity.  Moreover, self-expression increasingly develops as you acquire self- knowledge, love, mastery and acceptance.  Psychoanalysts use icebergs as symbols of the depth and substance of the human personality inclusive of the conscious, subconscious and unconscious.  They posit ninety percent (90%) or more of our characters is hidden.  Nine-tenths of an iceberg is hidden beneath the surface of the ocean.  Consider a huge iceberg that can sink a large cruise ship.  As it relates to human personality, the unconscious equals the undisclosed portion of an iceberg.

 

Achieving self-expression necessitates greater self-knowledge.  Essentially, you embark upon a treasure hunt within the oceanic depths of your being.  You find out who you are and what lies within you.  That knowledge emerges in theoretical, experiential, relational and entrepreneurial dimensions.  Reading books and taking classes will offer some internal insight.  Application of social science methods, philosophy and logic will further assist you in self-discovery.  Theories from various psychological schools of thought coupled with intellectually respectable ideas from prevalent self-help authors combine to offer additional techniques of self-analysis.  Then, your day-to-day experiences within work and other settings undoubtedly reveal previously hidden dimensions of your character.  You realize who you are when you reflect upon your choices and behavior within a crisis.  Arguably, experience is a more definitive teacher than any theory.  A corollary of experiential learning is relational knowledge.  Anyone can be perfect by himself.  Consider assets and liabilities of character that unfold with the crucible of your professional and personal relationships.  Entrepreneurial knowledge crystallizes as you tackle problems.  Whether personal or societal, problems coerce you to dig deeply within and cultivate resources to resolve them.  Your attempts to solve problems reveal what your talent and abilities are.  In its various dimensions, self-knowledge is a primary key to attaining inward peace.