Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Empty Self
Jollyblogger comments on a passges for J.P. Moreland's latest book. Morland discusses how failure to empty oneself in the fashion that the gospel proscribes not only harms us spiritually, but emotionally:
But also interesting is the link between the emotional and the spiritual. These are distinct things, but I do think it fair to say that emotional health is not possible without spiritual health. Only Christ can provide us with a sufficient basis for emptying ourselves in an emotionally healthy manner.
I have spoken in these spaces before about the church becoming too "therapeutic." That is not because the church lacks a therapeutic role, but rather because the church confuses which comes first.
This also speaks to one of the greatest difficulties we have when we seek to evangelize. "Come to Jesus and find emotional health!" Well, yes, but if ALL you seek is emotional health, if you do not first empty yourself on a spiritual level, emotional health becomes impossible. Further, if you go through the motions of the spiritual work purely for the sake of reaching for the emotional health, the results are nil.
When people buy a house, they look at appliances and paint, floor coverings and design. No one looks at the foundation. But the best decorating in the world will still rot if the foundation is lacking. (Didn't Jesus have a parable about this?)
In the church we are foundation builders, NOT decorators. And yet, so often we work at decorating the lives of those we minister to. We seek the glamor and the attention. You know who your decorator is, but you are clueless about who built the foundation of your home.
Which illustrates that we have yet to fully empty ourselves. For were we completely empty, we would not care if they knew who we were or not.
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You will have great difficulty forming meaningful attachments to other people. If you are shy, you will withdraw from people - not to find solitude to reenter relationships with solid boundaries and emotional/spiritual refreshment, but to attack them and find safety that keeps you from having to change. You will hide from others and fail to give them what they need from you to grow in spiritual formation and friendship. If you are outgoing, you will repress your fears and shame by becoming socially aggressive. You will talk all the time in social situations and not develop skills as a good listener, or if you don't know how to listen to others, it will be a front to earn the right to turn the conversation back to you at the earliest opportunity.This is for people who are constantly seeking self-satisfaction. To this, David adds a small post-script:
I would also add that there is a spiritual version of this and that is the one who is primarily concerned with their own spiritual growth. Obviously, spiritual growth is the goal of the Christian life, but I think there is a slight change in semantics that can change us from spriitual narcissists to full bodied Christianity. Rather than being primarily concerned about my own spiritual growth I need to be primarily concerned with knowing Jesus and loving others. The one produces the other, but it is a slight change of direction that I think makes all the difference in the world. Just as I am no longer always taking my happiness temperature I am no longer always taking my spiritual temperature and getting all worked up at the many ways I fail. I just get out of myself to love Jesus and love others.First of all, I like the term "empty self" coined by Moreland. There is a perversion, as David points out, of using terms like "self-denial" that really make it just another form of self-absorption. "Empty self seems best to capture what it is God asks of us.
But also interesting is the link between the emotional and the spiritual. These are distinct things, but I do think it fair to say that emotional health is not possible without spiritual health. Only Christ can provide us with a sufficient basis for emptying ourselves in an emotionally healthy manner.
I have spoken in these spaces before about the church becoming too "therapeutic." That is not because the church lacks a therapeutic role, but rather because the church confuses which comes first.
This also speaks to one of the greatest difficulties we have when we seek to evangelize. "Come to Jesus and find emotional health!" Well, yes, but if ALL you seek is emotional health, if you do not first empty yourself on a spiritual level, emotional health becomes impossible. Further, if you go through the motions of the spiritual work purely for the sake of reaching for the emotional health, the results are nil.
When people buy a house, they look at appliances and paint, floor coverings and design. No one looks at the foundation. But the best decorating in the world will still rot if the foundation is lacking. (Didn't Jesus have a parable about this?)
In the church we are foundation builders, NOT decorators. And yet, so often we work at decorating the lives of those we minister to. We seek the glamor and the attention. You know who your decorator is, but you are clueless about who built the foundation of your home.
Which illustrates that we have yet to fully empty ourselves. For were we completely empty, we would not care if they knew who we were or not.
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