Catalyst Track: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality // Day Three

This track comes from Pete Scazzero’s newly updated book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

In this journey of emotionally healthy spirituality, we are talking about radical change at the core of our being.

We want to be the men and women God has called us to be—our true selves in Christ. Enormous distractions keep us from listening to our feelings, our desires, our dreams, our likes, and dislikes.

My journey into emotionally healthy spirituality began very simply. Each day, as part of my devotions with God, I would allow myself to feel emotion before God. Then I would journal. Over time I began to discern patterns and God’s movements in a new way in my life.

In this 3-day track, Pete Scazzero gives leaders the opportunity to very practically evaluate and adjust the way they practice and live a life of healthy spiritual leadership.

You conduct meetings, resolve conflict, cast vision, lead teams. You build relationships, listen, speak and love. Your role as a leader in ministry or an organization requires a lot from you. And the key to leading others with mature leadership is to make sure you, yourself have a mature understanding and practice of emotionally healthy spirituality.

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Day 3 – Blessed are the Peacemakers

 

A tragically misinterpreted verse in the New Testament is Jesus’ proclamation: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Most people think that Jesus calls us in this verse to be pacifiers and appeasers who ensure that nobody gets upset. We are to keep the peace, ignoring difficult issues and problems, making sure things remain stable and serene.

When, out of fear, we avoid conflict and appease people, we are false peacemakers. For example:

Pam disagrees with her coworkers at lunch when they slander her boss. She is afraid to speak up. She goes along. I don’t want to kill the atmosphere by speaking up and disagreeing, she thinks. She is a false peacemaker.

Yolanda is engaged. She would like more time to rethink her decision but is afraid that her fiancé and his family will get angry. She goes through with the wedding. She is a false peacemaker.

The problem with all these scenarios is that the way of true peace will never come through pretending what is wrong is right! True peacemakers love God, others, and themselves enough to disrupt false peace. Jesus models this for us.