Chapter 16

The Road to Spiritual Health

In chapter five, I maintained that if we were dysfunctional or unhealthy because we accepted the false beliefs, then some evidence of that should be apparent in our lives. I went on to discuss how those untrue beliefs adversely affect our sense of identity, worth, and security and how that translates into problems in our relationships.

It is necessary at this point to discuss the implications of dependence on God. How can knowing him, accepting nourishment from him, and following his will benefit us in our daily lives? How can it affect our relationships with other people?

As children, we initially invest our sense of identity, worth, and security in our parents. As we grow older and are exposed to the larger society, we tend to reinvest those things in other elements of society or in other people specifically. The point I want to make is that this transfer of investments is not done immediately, but is instead a gradual process. It also may never be a complete transfer because we may leave some of our old investments in place even as we accept additional beliefs. Our transference to God is no different. Our acknowledgment of his existence and his love–even of his dependability–does not mean we will trust him alone. We have been severely and irreparably damaged by the false beliefs to the point that we can never be completely healthy spiritually. But we can be much better than we are. God realizes that we cannot become completely healthy spiritually, just as he realizes that someone who’s been run over by a bus may walk with a limp. How can our transference to God improve the quality of our lives?

1. Sense of identity. Look at the world around you. God’s creations are more complex, beautiful, functional, and perpetual than anything we can create ourselves. God doesn’t make junk. He created each of us.

As we learn to identify ourselves as children of God who have been victimized by spiritual denial, it’s easier to separate things we’ve done and felt from who we are as individuals. It allows us to look at those skeletons in our closets and feelings we’ve harbored as evidence of learned or defensive behavior rather than as proof that we are reprehensible people who will always be inadequate. In recognizing that victimization, we can learn to forgive ourselves. God recognized a long time ago that we’d been victimized. His forgiveness will come when we realize we need it. God doesn’t want to punish us for past mistakes. He simply wants reconciliation. As we gradually transfer our sense of identity to God, we gradually transfer it away from those who want to control or manipulate us by claiming to be authoritative in telling us who we are. Their messages will be far less compelling.

As we learn to identify ourselves as children of God, we also learn to see others in the same way. It allows us to see them as victims of spiritual denial, too. It better enables us to forgive them and to empathize with their struggles, making us less desirous of judging them.

Viewing ourselves and others as children of God also enhances our awareness of the resources at our disposal. Instead of viewing our physical, emotional, intellectual, or material assets as evidence of who we are, we are free to view them with appreciation in the knowledge that not everyone is so blessed.

2. Sense of worth. Each of us is one of God’s works of art. That in itself constitutes our worth. In recognizing that God loves us and willfully desires to protect us and to assist in our healthy growth, we are better enabled to love ourselves.

In recognizing our own lovability, we can better recognize the lovability of those around us. Each of us is like a piece in a giant jigsaw puzzle. Every piece is good and necessary to the completion of the picture. Not every piece belongs next to every other piece, however. We may from time to time come across people next to whom we honestly don’t belong. It just isn’t a comfortable fit for whatever reason. Recognizing our own worth can allow us simply to move along without the need to view the other person as having diminished worth.

3. Sense of security. For most of us, this is the area in which we’ve been most conditioned to conform to the false messages. To people who live in an affluent society, money is perhaps the single most powerful source of security. That also makes it the most difficult dependency to surrender.

As a person’s sense of identity and sense of worth are enhanced in their relationship with God, they will become more aware of his faithfulness, his love, and his wisdom. They will be more willing to believe that he is dependable. They will be more willing to defer to him. They’ll be more willing to risk, more sure in the belief that he’ll catch them if they fall. It takes time.

We’re like children whose father is coaxing them to jump from the bed into his arms. At first the children may be apprehensive. If they never jump, the father can never prove his dependability. As we learn to realize that God will catch us every time, we’ll jump with less reservation. As we learn to trust the security of God’s wisdom, we’ll be more willing to follow him, using all the resources we possess. If we do, we’ll be where he wants us to be, doing what he wants us to do. And because that is what we were created for, we’ll be better at that than at anything else we could do.

4. Diminished defensiveness. None of us is defensive unless we perceive a threat. If someone told me they were going to sink my boat, I’d not feel threatened at all. I don’t have a boat. If someone told me they were going to torch my car, it would be a different story. As we become more aware that our identity, worth, and security are absolute and immune to being diminished, we feel less threatened by what others may think of us. It allows us to be more honest with ourselves and with them. It allows us to become protective without becoming defensive. It permits us to become assertive without becoming aggressive. It allows us to better handle criticism and makes us more inclined to apologize and ask forgiveness when we’ve hurt someone else.

5. Increased ability to love. With a better understanding of needs and wants and with a willful desire to protect and to assist in the healthy growth of the totality of God’s creation, we can better love both ourselves and others. We can more easily say no to the wants of others if those wants must be satisfied at the expense of our needs. We can more easily forego our own wants if they must be satisfied at the expense of someone else’s needs.

Because we were taught that our identity, worth, and security were dependent on those around us, we’ve also been taught to assume some responsibility for those feelings in others with whom we relate. We like to make people we love feel good about themselves. Our new awareness of love and the gradual certainty that identity, worth, and security can be found only in God frees us from the desire to represent ourselves dishonestly as qualified judges. We can encourage people to find and accept real identity, real worth, and real security.

We can gradually come to realize that many hurtful messages we receive from others are not really true reflections of how they feel about us, but are rather defensive attempts to keep us from getting too close. Denial doesn’t like to be seen up close. It prefers to dwell in guarded isolation.

In romantic relationships, we’ll be more aware of the inherent conflict between “love” and “in love.” “Love” wants what’s healthiest for both the other person and us. “In love” simply wants the other person. “In love” can ruin dishonest relationships. “Love” can do nothing but make any relationship healthier.

As parents, we can be more aware of the messages we give to our children, teaching them at an early age how to know God and how to listen to him. We can lead them to know real identity, real worth, and real security in God without wanting to misrepresent ourselves as authoritative in telling them who they are, what they’re worth, and how secure they are. We can teach them the importance of not being victimized and the need to avoid victimizing others. We can teach them what love is really all about.

6. Increased ability to cope. With an awareness of God’s existence and activity in our lives and an understanding of the tragedy of society’s spiritual denial, the world might make sense for the first time. Many circumstances of life that frustrate people who are plagued by low self-esteem and defensiveness can become not only more understandable but even anticipated. We can learn to live our lives with greater honesty, a greater willingness to risk, and without the burden to be successful as we follow God’s will. He only asks us to be faithful. He doesn’t ask us to control others. He doesn’t ask us to allow them to control us. He only wants us to be healthy and free to be the people he created. When we can do that, the beauty of his human creations is apparent, too.

If you became aware of a car that was free, required no maintenance or fuel, and would be stylish indefinitely, would you get one? If there was an unlimited supply of them, would you recommend them to other people?

When people are convinced they’ve been helped, it’s common for them to recommend the source of that help to others. In making unsolicited recommendations about God, have some expectation that you’ll be met by spiritual denial. That denial will more likely provoke an attack on the messenger than on the message. Be prepared for it and don’t allow it to diminish your sense of identity or worth. God doesn’t ask any of us to change the world single-handedly. Just to allow him to work through us. As you become more secure in your newfound identity and worth, you may be surprised at the number of people you’ll encounter whose feelings about themselves are noticeably unhealthy. Once they realize you don’t want to judge, control, or manipulate them, you may be surprised at how honestly they speak about themselves and their feelings. You may be further surprised at how many of these people are hungry to hear from someone who knows that a relationship with God is possible.

The people who know God are like conduit. At best, they initiate nothing. They simply allow the love of God to flow through them, turning as he leads them, and using the resources at their disposal to dispense his love where he wants it to pour. Our primary responsibility is to keep the conduit free of obstructions while surrendering control to him.

Those who don’t know God must continually seek validation and confirmation of who they are, what they’re worth, and how secure they are. As though they’re standing at giant pinball machines, they nervously and anxiously attempt to control the flippers of power, wealth, education, fashion, competence, and recognition, attempting to score at least as high as those around them, occasionally tilting the machine ever so slightly, hoping they won’t get caught.

Those who grow to depend on God become freer to simply be. Safe in the knowledge that God knows we’ll never be perfect, we can strive in the midst of that grace to become honestly healthier.